| dc.description.abstract | Background: The Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) is an essential structure within the human knee, and rates of ACL reconstruction surgeries (ACLR) are at an all-time high. ACLR is a complex operation where a graft is taken from elsewhere in the body or external structures and integrated into the normal ACL position behind the kneecap. Post-operative healthcare teams frequently use question-guided self-assessments to guide patient perceptions of their knee function and ability in the months or years following surgery. These serve as a valuable indicator of patient?s status regarding fear, pain, inhibited function, and level of recovery following ACLR. Purpose: To understand the relationship between self-reported psychological responses after ACLR and time since surgery. Methods: 25 participants ranging from 0.5 months to 10 years post-ACLR completed the International Knee Documentation Committee Subjective Knee Form (IKDC) and their overall scores, reflective of cognitive outlook, were compared based on their time since operation. Results: With an alpha level set at 0.05, there were three significant results uncovered in this study: an existent overall correlation between time since surgery and IKDC score in the whole sample and strong significant relationships between time and IKDC value in both the 0-2 year and 2-5-year post-surgical groups. Discussion: The analysis of our results revealed a direct, positive correlation between IKDC score- representing cognitively perceived knee function- and time since the operation, up until the 5-year timepoint. | |
