The Sports Docs Podcast
Sports medicine is a constantly evolving field, with hundreds of new articles published each month on the topic. This ever-growing wealth of information can make it challenging to stay updated on the newest approaches and techniques, and to know which data should actually change your practice. Join orthopedic surgeons, Dr. Catherine Logan and Dr. Ashley Bassett, as they chat about the most recent developments in sports medicine and dissect through all the noise.
On each episode of The Sports Docs podcast, the hosts will tackle a specific injury – from ACL tears to shoulder instability – and review the top research from various high-impact journals that month, including The American Journal of Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy: The Journal of Arthroscopic and Related Surgery, Sports Health, Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons, and more. The Sports Docs will also be joined by experts in the field of sports medicine – orthopedic surgeons, nonoperative sports medicine specialists, athletes, physical therapists, athletic trainers and others – to provide a fresh and well-rounded perspective based on their unique experiences.
The Sports Docs – Dr. Logan & Dr. Bassett – are friends & former co-residents from the Harvard Combined Orthopaedic Residency Program, who went onto esteemed sports medicine fellowships at The Steadman Clinic and The Rothman Institute, respectively. Dr. Logan practices in Denver, CO, and serves as Team Physician for Men's USA Lacrosse & as a Team Physician for U.S. Ski & Snowboard. Dr. Bassett is the director of the Women’s Sports Medicine Center at the Orthopedic Institute of New Jersey and practices across northern NJ, primarily in Morris and Sussex Counties.
Together, they will bring monthly conversations on how to care for athletes of all ages and levels of play, with a healthy mix of cutting-edge science and real-world application.
The Sports Docs Podcast
116: Overtime – ACL Graft Choice and Psychological Readiness to RTS
On each of these mini episodes, we chat about a new article or new surgical technique in the field of sports medicine. We’ll give you our quick take on the most recent data and how this data will be impacting our practice.
Today, we’re talking about graft choice for anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, and specifically how that impacts psychological readiness to return to play. Now, we’ve spoken extensively about ACL injury on this podcast.
On our first ever episode with Dr. Mary Mulcahey was two-part segment all about ACL tears. Since then, we have gone on to discuss risks factors for ACL tears, ACL reconstruction, augmentation with lateral extra-articular tenodesis, revision ACL surgery and more! We also did an entire Game Plan episode on ACL graft choice and an Overtime episode “update” on ACL graft choice – the latter is episode #81 if you want to check it out.
We also touched upon psychological readiness to return to play after ACL reconstruction in episode #16. Musculoskeletal injuries, in particular ACL injuries, can take a tremendous psychological toll on our athletes. Depression, a common experience for injured athletes, has been associated with worse patient- reported outcomes, higher levels of pain, and increased rates of postop complications.
Unfortunately, caring for the mental side of the injured athlete remains a huge gap in our field of orthopedics and sports medicine. For this reason, Catherine and her colleague Emily Perrin created The Unbroken Athlete – a resource containing comprehensive mental and physical programs for athletes to enhance their recovery journey and performance. Catherine will speak a bit more about this during the episode.
Our paper today is titled “Association Between Autograft Choice and Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport After ACL Reconstruction.” This level 3 retrospective cohort study was performed at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. It sought to evaluate the relationship between an athlete psychological readiness to return to sport, as defined by the ACL-RSI score, and autograft choice – either quadriceps tendon, hamstring tendon or bone-patellar-tendon-bone.