New predictive factors for anterior cruciate ligament injury in young female basketball players: a case report

Basketball is a contact sport game that includes important stresses of the joints of the lower limbs. It follows an increased risk of developing acute traumatic pathologies, among which the lesion of the anterior cruciate ligament of the knee (ACL). Women have a greater predisposition to develop lesion of ACL. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of ACL injury risk factors detectable with wearable inertial system in a national agonist basketball player under 14 subjected to prospective collegial surveys. The injured participant suffered the ACL rupture during an international basketball match, which took place a month after the first evaluation session. The athlete underwent ACL reconstruction followed by a 6-months rehabilitation period. The evaluation of jump landing task Single Leg Drift Jump Protocol, which was carried out before training sessions, was made before and after the knee injury with the tools Optogait and GYKO. The results showed significant differences in parameters of the injured lower limb compared to the contralateral limb in the presurgery evaluation. The ANOVA analysis showed statistically significant differences between the presurgery evaluation and the postsurgery evaluations of the injured limb, while it did not highlighted differences in the healthy limb. The instrumental analysis of the sport-specific gesture performed with GYKO inertial sensor and OPTOGait bars could be useful to identify athletes at risk of ACL injury.