RETURN OF NORMAL GAIT PATTERNS AFTER ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT RECONSTRUCTION

Individuals with anterior cruciate ligament deficiency typically do no t have quadriceps activity during stance. This aberrant pattern has be en termed ''quadriceps avoidance'' gait. We performed gait analysis du ring walking on 10 normal controls and 10 subjects 8 to 12 months afte r they had anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction using autogenous middle third of the patellar tendon. All patients had good subjective and objective results at the time of analysis. Differences in gait bet ween subjects and controls persisted up to 12 months after surgery. Sp ecifically, subjects with anterior cruciate ligament reconstructions d emonstrated significant reductions in midstance knee flexion moments ( P < 0.01) and tibially directed loading rates (P < 0.05) when compared with controls. However, the subjects had a net external flexion momen t throughout most of the stance phase.of gait, implying that quadricep s activity was present. After anterior cruciate ligament reconstructio n, there is a tendency toward gait normalization, and a quadriceps avo idance mechanism is no longer present.