JOSPT Insights

Returning to sport after an ACL injury is often framed around a single construct: fear of reinjury. But what if fear doesn't tell the whole story?
In today's episode, Chelsea and Marquis speak with Cobie Starcevich about her team's qualitative evidence synthesis exploring how athletes experience and interpret reinjury concerns after ACL injury.
The team's findings suggest that what clinicians commonly label as "fear of reinjury" is actually a much broader, nuanced experience encompassing altered beliefs, assessments of threat, behavioral and cognitive coping strategies, physiological sensations, and concerns about the future.
Cobie explains what the findings mean for clinicians, and how clinicians can move beyond fear and into exploring the multidimensional experiences of injury with patients.
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RESOURCES
Qualitative evidence synthesis of athletes' experience and interpretation of reinjury concerns after ACL injury: https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2026.13852

A patient might ask the clinician: "How long will it take me to get back to sport?" or "How long until I'm feeling back to myself again?". These questions ask the clinician to make a prognosis - to predict the future.

Often we rely on our clinical experience or intuition to answer with a prognosis. Sometimes we might know some prognostic factors, which can give us some big-picture ideas, but they're rarely enough to give the full picture.
Today physiotherapists and researchers Daniel Feller and Dr Alessandro Chiarotto (Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands) explain prognostic prediction models: what they are, how they might help in practice, and what to look for when you're deciding whether a tool like the STarT Back is suitable for your practice.

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RESOURCES

When is a prognostic prediction model ready for clinical use?: https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2026.13868

Today we're talking about one very important milestone in rehabilitation after an ACL reconstruction: return to running. It's a milestone that sometimes gets overshadowed by its more flamboyant sibling, return to sport.

Brendan Butler joins JOSPT Insights to explore best practice in return to running. Brendan an Irish sports physiotherapist, who is currently working at the Aspetar Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Hospital in Doha, Qatar. He's a member of the Aspetar ACL team, where he applies skills honed in Gaelic football, rugby, soccer and athletics.

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RESOURCES

Simple clinical measures that quantify knee loading symmetry during running: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41110241/

Clinician choices for return to running criteria: https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/josptopen.2026.0195

Lower medial hamstring activity during running: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33782638/

All the data point to a growing burden of chronic musculoskeletal pain for populations around the world. Clearly, there is a need to innovate in the way that musculoskeletal care is delivered.

In today's episode, Dr Luc Hébert shares his wealth of experience in musculoskeletal rehabilitation care - as a clinician and as a researcher leading clinical trials of different care models. We explore new models of care and the data supporting them.

Dr Hébert is Professor at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, and researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Rehabilitation and Social Integration.

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RESOURCES

Group-based rehabilitation vs. individual programs: https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2024.12342

Benefits of primary contact emergency department physical therapy: https://www.jospt.org/doi/10.2519/jospt.2025.13429

There are many outstanding leaders in the sports medicine and musculoskeletal rehabilitation world. How did they get there? What decisions did they make that have got them to where they are today?

In today's episode, Dr Amber Donaldson shares what she is looking for in the next generation of sports medicine leaders, how she has approached developing her own career, and her advice for early-career clinicians looking to establish themselves in elite sports medicine.

Dr Donaldson is the Vice President - Sports Medicine at the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.