How can physio help with canine cranial cruciate ligament rupture?

The cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) is a small ligament inside the stifle (knee) joint, pictured in red 🟥. CCL tears are a common canine injury, sometimes through a traumatic accident, or often through degeneration over time. When the CCL ruptures the stifle loses stability. As you can see in picture 2, the femur is able to slide down the tibia, and the tibia itself can slip forwards. As well as being painful for the dog, this can cause injury to the meniscus (kind of like a joint cushion, pictured in blue 🟦), abnormal cartilage wear and inflammation, possibly leading to arthritis and other joint issues.

The ligament rarely heals properly on its own after a full rupture, especially in larger dogs, so surgery is often recommended.

So Where does physio come in?

Physio is useful to optimise healing after injury and surgery, and to get the limb back to full function as soon as possible. Through the initial lameness and surgery, a large amount of muscle loss is common, and a structured rehab plan is important to build this up evenly and safely, as the dog learns how to use the limb again. Building good hind limb gait patterns and musculature, combined with treatment of the rest of the body, is thought to reduce the chance of compensatory injuries during healing. Strong, balanced muscle mass on the previously injured leg is also important to help reduce the effects of arthritis that may have developed due to the trauma.

For more detailed information on CCL rupture rehab please feel free to message!