You're playing tag with your kids, hitting a fast tennis return shot, landing after a gymnastics vault, evading a football tackle or jumping off a rock onto the beach. Suddenly, you feel a pop in your knee, then immediate pain followed by swelling. You may have just injured or torn your anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL.
A kneecap injury can happen from a blow to the knee or a fall. Some injuries can also occur due to overuse. When you injure your kneecap—also called your patella—there may be damage to the surrounding soft tissues, such as a patellar tendon tear, or a fracture to the bone.
Shoulder sprains and strains are both injuries that can happen due to overuse of or trauma to the shoulder. While the symptoms of the two are similar, they involve different types of tissue within your body. Damage to these tissues can make it hard to move and use your shoulder.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a request for a supplemental Biologics License Application for the repair of knee cartilage defects using arthroscopic delivery of the autologous cultured chondrocytes on a porcine collagen membrane.
A hip fracture, more common in older people, can reduce a person's ability to live independently and possibly shorten their life as well. If you are older and have a hip fracture, reduced mobility can lead to bed sores, blood clots in the legs or lungs, and the loss of muscle mass (which increases the risk of falls and re-injury).
