ACL Rehabilitation Case Study

In our first case, Jody returns from successful ACL rehabilitation and returns to the field. In her first at bat, it is conceived that she tears her other ACL during her swing. Using the context clues, we shall discuss what other factors are associated with it and what can be done to protect herself and other athletes from having this misfortune. Jody, outside of softball has had a various amount of stressors that has lead us to this point. She has been arguing with her boyfriend and has been distracted allowing her to lose sleep and struggle with her mid-terms. Outside of this, she also has limited social support. This begins our discussion on the injury prevention and the effects that it can have on re-injury. Environmentally we are looking …show more content…
Internally, we have discovered that her sleeping pattern is a suppressed and decreased. Through this, we also see that her mental coping has also taken a hit through the lack of energy she has for her exams. Her external social support system is also inadvertently hurting her as she has a negative one (via her boyfriend) or lack thereof one (via her teammates or friends) and needs to find solace in the support staff. This social support that she does not have is the emotional and her appraisal sense. We can infer that she has had good informational and instrumental support from the medical staff since her rehabilitation was successful. Emotionally and through appraisals our student athlete struggles to cope with the stressors, but also does not have the means to cope with those stressors. We know from discussion with athletes that have high stressors, low support are more prone to on the field injuries and …show more content…
However, the rapport with others such as coaches and other support staff members maybe lacking given the situation. This can be done through communication and checking. A simple, “How are you?” or “What is wrong?” from the other staff members can help build rapport and trust within the solution. Unfortunately, most of her stresses are coming from environmental factors that affect her psychological profile. We can only assume that the coach is being as supportive as he/she could be, since they have not been called into question. Sometimes coaches foster a negative environment by judging, ignoring, or singling out injured players, which was not discussed in this case, thankfully. Coaches can help foster a good environment within their team by including and discussing injuries with the athlete and medical staff and being inclusive to all the athletes. By building this rapport with everyone, injured or non-injured, this would make the athlete feel better about their injury and not guilty. Unfortunately outside forces can be controlled the easiest out of types of stressors that can be seen in athletic injuries. That being said, one of the biggest, unnecessary stresses is the