ReviewSports health
When Is It Safe to Return to Sport After ACL Reconstruction? Reviewing the Criteria.
Review in Sports health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 71 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
71 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Return to sport after ACL reconstruction in female athletes: a meta-analysis of return rates and time to return.Journal of orthopaedic surgery and research · 2026Pooled it
- The utility of psychological readiness scales in predicting return to sport: a systematic review.BMC psychology · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Inferior Outcomes after Subsequent Revision or Contralateral ACL Reconstruction: A Cross-Sectional Study.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2026Article
- Return to play and recovery metrics after arthroscopic Bankart repair with augmentations in rugby players.JSES reviews, reports, and techniques · 2026Article
- Return-to-play timing and secondary anterior cruciate ligament injury risk in elite soccer players: A transfermarkt-based longitudinal analysis.Journal of experimental orthopaedics · 2026Article
- Serial Changes in Knee Muscle Strength and Functional Performance After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction: A Retrospective Cohort Study of 107 Patients.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Article
- Test-Retest Reliability of Single-Arm Closed Kinetic Chain Upper Extremity Stability Test.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2026Article
- Alterations of urinary proteomic profiles are correlated with return to sport after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2026Article
- The Effect of Duration of Supervised Rehabilitation on Outcomes Following Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction: A Systematic Review.International journal of sports physical therapy · 2026Article
- Activity level, kinesiophobia, and sports injury-related anxiety in professional athletes after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- From 'My world fell apart' to 'The best thing that happened in my life': elite athletes' longitudinal journeys after an injury.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2026Article
- Maximal and Explosive Strength of High-Level Alpine Skiers After Severe Lower Extremity Injury: A Retrospective Comparison with Non-Injured Skiers.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Return To Sport Following ACL Reconstruction.Current reviews in musculoskeletal medicine · 2025Review
- The reciprocal relationships between autonomous motivation, social cognitive beliefs and rehabilitation adherence: A cross-lagged panel longitudinal study among post-surgery ACL reconstructed patients.British journal of health psychology · 2025Article
- Articular Cartilage Arthrokinematics and Compositional Measurements With qMRI 1 to 2 Years After ACL Reconstruction With Meniscal Surgery.The American journal of sports medicine · 2025Article
- Return-To-Sport Assessments After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury: Which Jump-Landing Test Is Sensitive to an ACL-Injury History Under Fatigued or NonFatigued Conditions?European journal of sport science · 2025Article
- Changes in postural stability induced by a ball-and-board game designed from a systems perspective.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2025Article
- Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tears among Football Players.Current reviews in musculoskeletal medicine · 2025Review
11 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
contextThere is an ever-increasing trend toward sports, fitness, and recreation activities, so the incidence of anterior cruciate ligament sports injuries has increased. Perhaps the greatest challenge for sports clinicians is to return the injured athlete back to his/her original sport at an even greater level of functional ability than preinjury. For this, rigorous and well-researched criteria are needed. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: Using medical subject headings and free-text words, an electronic search was conducted up to October 2018. Subject-specific search was based on the terms STUDY
designDescriptive review. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level 2.
resultsFive principal criteria were found, including psychological factors, performance/functional tests, strength tests, time, and modifiable and nonmodifiable risk factors.
conclusionThe psychological readiness of the player is a major factor in successful safe return to sport (SRTS) decision making. Although strength, performance, and functional tests presently form the mainstay of SRTS criteria, there exists very little scientific evidence for their validity. More protection should be provided to athletes with known risk factors. Movement quality is important, if not more important than the quantifiable measures. As a result of the significantly high rerupture rate in young individuals, delayed SRTS should be considered preferably beyond 9 months postsurgery.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.