A Systematic Review of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction Rehabilitation –Part I: Continuous Passive Motion, Early Weight Bearing, Postoperative Bracing, and Home-Based Rehabilitation

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction is a common procedure to allow patients to return to their former active lifestyle. Rehabilitation of the reconstructed knee is critical for the successful return to risky cutting and jumping activities. While many of the individual aspects of ACL rehabilitation have been evaluated using randomized trials few reviews have used an evidence based approach to create an overall protocol for ACL rehabilitation. Previous systematic reviews were not inclusive of all possible aspects of rehabilitation i.e. bracing and were old enough to exclude many recently published studies.1, 2 The goal of this systematic review is to assemble the available randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in ACL rehabilitation to facilitate the development of evidence based rehabilitation protocols. This represents Part I of a 2 part series systematically reviewing the Level 1 and 2 evidence regarding ACL reconstruction rehabilitation.