Faculty Mentor(s)

Professor April Kamba

Project Type

Honors Program project

Scholarship Domain(s)

Scholarship of Discovery

Presentation Type

Presentation

Abstract

Presentation Location: Weber Center, Room 101

Abstract

Background: A common injury for athletes is a tear in the anterior cruciate ligament. There is a higher rate of injuries among female athletes rather than male athletes due to many anatomical and physiological problems. One of the proposed causes of these injuries is the difference in hormone levels in during the phases of the menstrual cycle. ACL injury prevention programs have been used to help reduce the number of injuries among athletes, yet many athletic teams to not actively participate in these programs. Many studies have used the Lower Extremity Scoring System as a way to evaluate an athlete’s risk of sustaining an ACL injury for athletes that have and have not participated in ACL injury prevention.

Methods: 122 female collegiate athletes were tested using the LESS model and a questionnaire on the injury prevention and menstrual cycle history of the athlete. The average LESS scores were compared in order to determine significant differences between athletes who had participated in injury prevention, and those who had not, as well as athletes in different phases of the menstrual cycle.

Results: One out of the eight teams had been actively participating in ACL injury prevention and had the lowest average LESS score of 5.43. The menstrual phases all had similar averages of LESS scores ranging from 7-8.

Conclusion: The results of the study concluded ACL injury prevention had lowered the risk of an ACL injury among the collegiate athletes, however, much less athletes were participating in ACL injury prevention than expected. The hypothesis for the menstrual cycle had been rejected due to the follicular phase having the lowest average LESS score.

Permission Type

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Share

COinS
 
Apr 16th, 3:00 PM Apr 16th, 3:20 PM

ACL Injury Prevention Participation Amongst Collegiate Female Athletes

Other

Presentation Location: Weber Center, Room 101

Abstract

Background: A common injury for athletes is a tear in the anterior cruciate ligament. There is a higher rate of injuries among female athletes rather than male athletes due to many anatomical and physiological problems. One of the proposed causes of these injuries is the difference in hormone levels in during the phases of the menstrual cycle. ACL injury prevention programs have been used to help reduce the number of injuries among athletes, yet many athletic teams to not actively participate in these programs. Many studies have used the Lower Extremity Scoring System as a way to evaluate an athlete’s risk of sustaining an ACL injury for athletes that have and have not participated in ACL injury prevention.

Methods: 122 female collegiate athletes were tested using the LESS model and a questionnaire on the injury prevention and menstrual cycle history of the athlete. The average LESS scores were compared in order to determine significant differences between athletes who had participated in injury prevention, and those who had not, as well as athletes in different phases of the menstrual cycle.

Results: One out of the eight teams had been actively participating in ACL injury prevention and had the lowest average LESS score of 5.43. The menstrual phases all had similar averages of LESS scores ranging from 7-8.

Conclusion: The results of the study concluded ACL injury prevention had lowered the risk of an ACL injury among the collegiate athletes, however, much less athletes were participating in ACL injury prevention than expected. The hypothesis for the menstrual cycle had been rejected due to the follicular phase having the lowest average LESS score.