The American journal of sports medicine
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Concussions may accelerate the progression to long-term mental health outcomes such as depression in athletes. ⋯ Professional football players self-reporting concussions are at greater risk for having depressive episodes later in life compared with those retired players self-reporting no concussions.
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Players in the National Football League (NFL) sustain injuries every season as the result of their participation. One factor associated with the rate of injury is the type of playing surface on which the players participate. ⋯ Injury rates for ACL sprains and eversion ankle sprains for NFL games played on FieldTurf were higher than rates for those injuries in games played on grass, and the differences were statistically significant.
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To date, few studies have been published reporting the 5-year follow-up of clinical and radiological outcomes for chondral defects treated with matrix-induced autologous chondrocyte implantation (MACI). ⋯ Patients treated with a MACI implant demonstrated significant clinical improvement and good quality repair tissue 5 years after surgery. The MACI procedure was shown to be a safe and effective treatment for symptomatic, traumatic chondral knee defects in this study.
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The Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) assesses acute and chronic knee injuries or early-onset osteoarthritis in young, active patients. The United States Food and Drug Administration guidelines recommend that patient-reported outcome instruments used to support clinical trial label claims should demonstrate content validity using patient input and have acceptable psychometric properties in the target population. To use the KOOS subscales in safety and efficacy trials assessing new treatments for patients with articular cartilage lesions, additional validation work, using input from patients with articular cartilage lesions, was necessary. ⋯ The study results support the use of the KOOS subscales among patients with articular cartilage lesions.
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Symptom reports play a critical role in the assessment and management of concussions. Symptoms are often conceptualized as factors comprising several related symptoms (eg, somatic factor = headache, nausea, vomiting). Previous research examining the factor structure of the 22-item Post-Concussion Symptom Scale (PCSS) has been limited to small samples and has not adequately evaluated factor loadings at both baseline and postconcussion for male and female athletes at the high school and collegiate levels. ⋯ The current findings reveal different symptom factors at baseline and postinjury and several age and sex differences on the symptom factors. At postconcussion, symptoms aggregated into a global concussion factor including cognitive, fatigue, and migraine symptoms. Symptoms reported at baseline are not the same as those reported after injury. The presence of a global postconcussion symptom comprising the fatigue factor highlights the importance of physical and cognitive rest during the first week after a concussion. Although headache was the most commonly reported symptom, it was not the greatest contributor to the global postconcussion symptom factor.