Quick return to sports possible after ankle sprain

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Athletes who have surgery for so-called "high" ankle sprains may be able to get back into the game fairly quickly, a small study suggests.

While most ankle sprains involve an injury to ligaments in the ankle joint itself, high ankle sprains occur just above the joint. They arise when the ligament connecting the two bones of the lower leg -- the fibula and the tibia -- is stretched or torn.

High ankle sprains are typically more difficult to treat than standard ankle sprains, and they sometimes require surgery to place a screw between the fibula and tibia while the ligament heals. If the ligament is torn, it may be repaired as well.

However, because the injury is relatively uncommon, there has been little research into how long athletes need to wait before returning to sports.

For the new study, researchers led by Dr. Dean C. Taylor of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, followed six male college athletes who had surgery for severe high ankle sprains.

All of the patients wore a splint for one week following the surgery, then began rehabilitation exercises. The athletes -- who played football, lacrosse or hockey -- were able to return to the game an average of six weeks after surgery, Taylor's team reports in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

All of the patients still had screws in place when they returned to sports, then had them removed about one month later, on average.

Over the full study follow-up -- an average of three years following the injury -- there was no evidence that the early return to sports hurt the athletes' healing process, according to the researchers.

The results, they write, suggest that in "selected cases," players can return to sports as early as six weeks after surgery -- at least following the treatment process used in this study.

They add that the findings should help in the design of larger studies aimed at firming up recommendations for treating high ankle sprains

SOURCE: American Journal of Sports Medicine, November 2007.