From Pitch to Lab: Georgia State Scientists are Tackling One of Soccer’s Toughest Injuries

In one National Institutes of Health-funded study, Tsai and his team are looking at how knee rehabilitation, including rehab for ACL tears, can preserve long-term knee cartilage health.

"When you go see an orthopedic surgeon or physical therapist, it's not that they don't care about your long-term health, but they need to focus on your immediate, short-term recovery first," Tsai says. "They're not going to be paying too much attention to something that's going to happen five to 10 years down the road."

And while ACL patients will have physical therapy after surgery, they may not see another physician for this injury for some time unless the joint starts hurting again due to degeneration.

"This rehab window that we have immediately after the initial injury is key," he says.

He and other GSU scientists are looking at what approaches to rehab work best. Their work includes human studies into the implications of favoring one side or the other after an injury and of walking speed after surgery. Researchers are also looking at what factors may lead to re-injury.

This kind of work is possible because of Georgia State's Biomechanics and Motor Control Laboratory, a state-of-the-art research facility equipped with motion-capture technology, light sensors and biomechanical tools that can provide insight into injury, recovery and motion. In addition to studying ACL injury recovery, the lab is also doing research on people with cerebral palsy, knee osteoarthritis and other lower extremity disorders.

Tsai has conducted preclinical research to explore optimal rehab principles that can best preserve the knee joint following traumatic injuries.

"Once we have that information, our ultimate goal is to apply it to rehabilitation through clinical trials to see if any of those modifications would improve patient outcomes," he says.

This kind of data helps inform better rehabilitation methods that can directly translate to patient care.