The thigh is the portion of the leg between the hip and the knee, skeletally supported by the femur.
The main extensor muscles of the thigh are the quadriceps, whilst the primary flexor muscles are the biceps femoris, semitendinosus and gracilis.
Muscle injuries are among the most common injuries in sports medicine, they are involved in 10 to 30% of all sports injuries, with the leg being one of the most commonly affected areas.
With fracture it is meant an interruption of the bone’s continuity. Fractures occur when a force is applied to the bone capable of overcoming its capacity for resistance.
There are different ways to classify and describe fractures:
– according to the origins of the fracture: traumatic or pathological (typical in elderly people);
– according to the mechanism of the fracture: direct or indirect;
– according to the type of fracture: traverse, oblique, spiral or longitudinal;
– according to the patterns of fractured segments: comminuted or compound;
– according to the extent of damage of the overlying skin: closed or open;
– according to the thickness of the bone exposed to fracture: complete or incomplete;
– according to the fracture’s stability: stable or unstable.
Typical symptoms in fractures are characterised by pain, rigidity, haematoma and functional limitations in the affected limb.
Diagnosis is usually confirmed with a standard X-ray.
The urgency in treatment is managed at the first aid. Then, it is extremely important to start a personalised rehabilitation treatment.
Femoral fracture rehabilitation
According to the site of rupture we recognize multiple types of femoral fracture (15 according to the classification of Winquist-Hansen) among the most common of the femoral neck, the shaft composed/decomposed/exposed. The quality and duration of rehabilitation treatment is therefore very varied and depends not only on the type of fracture but also on some other variables such as the age of the patient, the expected quality of life (sports goal), the degree of collaboration (number of sessions per week to devote to functional recovery).
The primary goal of rehabilitation is to make the patient independent by acting on the tone-trophic muscle, on the ROM retrieval and loading possibilities. The load must always be decided in consultation with the orthopedic surgeon who has treated the fracture.
The rehabilitation treatment consists in five phases, reaching the goal determines the transition to the next phase.
In the first phase we focus on the recovery of the range of motion through self-mobilization exercises and pain control; afterwards we focus on the global muscular strengthening, given the widespread loss of tone due to immobility: quadriceps (at first closed chain and then in the open), glutes, adductors and flexors of the hip, calf, hamstring, core muscles; simultaneously you will resume the aerobic activity permitted. After recovering the force, through the execution of the isokinetic test, you must complete the on field rehabilitation in order to retrieve the correct movement patterns and re-educate movement.