Mechanism of Meniscal Injury and its Impact on Performance in Athletes

Background: In today’s life style, the gap between athletic activities and daily life activities is becoming wider. The daily life routine is becoming sedentary due to technology and sports activities and thus require high level of physical performance. Knee joint is the most vulnerable to rapid forces and injuries, in which meniscal injury is quite noticeable. Objective: To determine the mechanism of meniscal injury and its impact on performance in athletes after knee meniscal injury. Methods: After taking approval from ethical committee, consent was taken from the athletes prior to filling out the forms. The study was conducted on 145 male athletes in Lahore, aged between 17 to 40 years. Data was collected through international knee documentation committee subjective knee form which consisted of demographical data and questions which were divided into three sections; symptoms, sports activities and knee functions. Results: The main results regarding the mechanism of meniscal injury showed that there were 29% athletes having insidious tear, 16.6% acute noncontact, 32.4% contact with player and 22.1% non-specific mechanism of tear. The mean and standard deviation of total international knee documentation committee score was found to be 66.64±3.83, reflecting a moderately affected level of performance. Conclusion: The findings concluded that the common mechanism of meniscal injury was during contact with player or defense strategy during activity. The athletic performance level due to meniscal injury was moderately affected.