Clinical Updates from ISHA 2015 (International Society for Hip Arthroscopy) Conference – Ben Matthew

We are delighted to host a blog from fellow physiotherapist and twitter geek, Ben Mathew (@function2fitnes) who discusses his take home messages from last years International Hip Conference in Cambridge. Ben discusses some brilliant considerations for when conservative treatment just doesn’t work, which compliments nicely with a recent blog we wrote on trying to manage hip pathology in-season (here). Some of the points I particular like relate to the rehab after surgery. Thats enough from me…Thanks very much to Ben.

 

Clinical Updates from ISHA 2015 (International Society for Hip Arthroscopy) Conference – September 2015, Cambridge

 

Conditions like Femoro-acetabular impingement (FAI) and Acetabular Labral tears (ALT) are being recognised as the leading cause of hip and groin pain in the active population and has gained increasing attention over the past decade. In the past, these pathological process simply went undiagnosed. Surgical management, especially hip arthroscopy, can be a viable treatment option, especially when conservative management has failed.

Leading hip surgeons, researchers, health economists and expert physiotherapists came together for the ISHA conference at Cambridge (24 – 26 September, 2015) to discuss the latest developments and research findings in this rapidly evolving clinical speciality. I was fortunate to be there and to gain the up-to-date understanding of the complex hip and groin area, and also to listen to some top speakers. It is difficult to summarise a 3 day seminar in a short post. However, I have tried to cover some key clinical points, which might be useful for therapists, involved in hip and groin rehab. I have divided this post in three areas

 

1. Clinical Examination of Hip Related Groin Pain
2. Management of Post-op Hip Arthroscopy Patient
3. Key References which were mentioned in the lectures

 

Clinical Examination of Hip Related Groin Pain

1. Examination of Chronic hip and groin pain is challenging. It is important to have a thorough subjective assessment as part of the screening process. Some of the key subjective questions specific to the hip region are

• Childhood hip disease like Perthes, SUFE, Dysplasia (These patients are at a high Risk of secondary Osteoarthritis)
• Lower Limb Fractures and History of Stress Fractures
• Mechanical Symptoms like Clicking, Locking and Catching with pain (Highly indicative of ALT)
• History of Steroid Use (linked with Red flag Pathology like Avascular necrosis)
• Multi-joint Pain and Presence of Generalised Ligamentous Laxity (linked with capsular laxity and ligamentum teres injuries)

 

2. Use of Patient reported Scales such as the HAGOS Scale and iHOT 33 were encouraged to be used as part of the screening process, to assess the physical, functional and psychological effect of chronic hip pain.

 

3. The most provocative movements for FAI and ALT are prolonged sitting, deep squat, getting in and out of car, kicking and twisting movement. Movements which involve deep squatting or loaded rotation are usually painful in this cohort. If the patients have significant early morning stiffness, there could be an element of early osteoarthritis.

 

4. Functional testing is an important part of the objective examination. Tests such as Overhead squat, Lateral step-down and Single leg squat are impaired in chronic hip and groin pain. The most common compensation is excessive hip adduction and hip internal rotation. These impairments could be due to pain, motor control deficits or weakness. If the patient can consciously correct it, it is most likely to be motor control deficit.

 

5. It is very common to have co-existing pathologies with chronic hip pain. Some common conditions are low back pain, SIJ pain and Pubic overload syndrome

 

6. There is no specific tests to diagnose for FAI or ALT. A combination of the FAIR (Impingement test) and FABER is useful to rule out articular hip pathology. The FAIR test is not specific for FAI, but indicates internal derangement of the hip.

 

7. Strength deficits are very common in chronic articular hip pathologies. It can be bilateral. The most affected groups are hip abductors and hip external rotators.

 

8. A very useful tip to differentiate between hip related groin pain and adductor related groin pain is by isometric strength testing, using hand held dynamometer. There is reduced adductor to abductor ratio in the adductor related groin pain group than hip related groin pain.

 

9. The most important objective marker is the range of medial rotation. Generally, patients with FAI tend to have internal rotation less than 15 degrees. Patients who have less than 10 degrees of internal rotation tend to do poorly with conservative management.

 

10. Excessive ROM in internal rotation and external rotation can be indicative of structural variations such as dysplasia or capsular laxity, which is very common in the dancing and martial arts population.

 

Post-op Hip Arthroscopy Hip Patients Management 

1. There is lack of consensus on these variables following hip arthroscopy (Weight bearing status, Use of CPM, timing for manual techniques, guidance of soft tissue work, Use of brace). Therefore, it is important to liaise with the surgeon on clear guidance and precaution for optimal rehab following hip arthroscopy.

 

2. Some suggested time-lines for different types of procedures in hip arthrscopy in the conference were

• Bone Reshaping / Osteoplasty   –   Immediate WB with crutches as tolerated
• Labral Debridement / Repair       –   Immediate WB with crutches as tolerated
• Cartilage Procedures / Microfracture – 6 Weeks NWB
• Capsule Procedures / Plication          – 6 Weeks NWB

 

3. The incidence of post-op complications are very low, around 0.5% for major complications. Most post-op issues are soft tissue inflammation such as psoas tendinitis.

 

4. Most patients symptoms tend to flare-up after 3-4 weeks, following hip arthroscopy, when they start weaning off crutches and increasing activity. It is important that patient are informed that it is a very slow process of rehab and loading should be gradual.

 

5. Hydrotherapy is a very useful adjunct and can be started within 8- 14 days, once the sutures are out and the wound is healed.

 

6. Exercises such as CLAM and Active SLR are best avoided in this cohort since it irritates the hip flexors and can lead to psoas tendinits which can be very painful and limit rehab progression. (See Sams thoughts on CLAM’s here)

 

7. Regaining Hip extension is paramount in the initial stage. Manual techniques are best avoided in the first 3-4 weeks. Avoid excessive passive stretches during this period, when the capsule and labrum is vulnerable.

 

8. Local stability of the small rotators of the hip is encouraged, in the initial stage, along with hip abductor training. Global movement training such as squats, step-ups and dead-lifts are not appropriate in the initial stages.

 

9. Progression of patients should be criteria based, rather than time based. It is important to have a clear return to play screening process, before returning to contact sports. In this regard, it is similar to ACL rehab.

 

• Around 82-87% of athletic patients are able to return to playing full sports following hip arthroscopy. The average time is between 6months – 8 months. The sport with the lowest success rate is rowing (not surprising, considering the excessive flexion in the sport)

 

I hope you found this summary of the conference useful and thanks for reading.

Any thoughts/comments very welcome.

 

Ben is MSK Extended Scope Practitioner in the NHS and also in private practice. He has a special interest in lower limb, running injuries and chronic hip and groin conditions. He is passionate about application of research in clinical practice and is involved in regular teaching nationwide on multiple lower limb courses. You can follow ben on Twitter@function2fitnes

Key References

1. Adler(2015)- Current Concepts in Rehabilitation following Hip Preservation Surgery: Part 2. Sports Health. Published online – July 2015
2. Agricola(2015)- What is Femoroacetabular Impingement? BJSM, Published Online – June 2015
3. Bleakley et al (2015)- Hip Joint Pathology as a Leading Cause of Groin Pain in the Sporting Population: A 6-Year Review of 894 Cases
 Am J Sports Med published online May 11, 2015
4. Elias- Jones et al (2015)- Inflammation and Neovascularization in Hip Impingement. Not just wear and tear. The American Journal of Sports Medicine, Vol. 43, No.8
5. Frank et al (2015)- Prevalence of Femoroacetabular Impingement Imaging Findings in Asymptomatic Volunteers: A Systematic Review, Arthroscopy, Vol 31, No 6 (June), 2015
6. Hammoud et al (2014))- The Recognition and Evaluation of Patterns of Compensatory Injury in Patients with Mechanical Hip Pain. Sports Health. Mar/Apr 2014
7. Mosler(2015)- Which factors differentiate athletes with hip/groin pain from those without? A systematic review with meta-analysis, BJSM, Published online – July 2015
8. Nepple at al (2015)- What is the association between sports participation and the development of proximal cam deformity? The American Journal of Sports Medicine
9. Ross et al (2014)- Effect of changes in pelvic Tilt on range of motion to Impingement and radiographic parameters of acetabular Morphologic Characteristics. Am J Sports Med, originally published online July 24, 2014
10. Zadpoor (2015)- Etiology of Femoroacetabular Impingement in Athletes: A Review of Recent Findings, Sports Med, Published Online: 22 May 2015

 

 

 

#Groin2014 – a not so brief summary

Any one familiar with twitter may have seen the recent hash tag for the 1st World Conference on goring pain in athletes (#Groin2014). This conference in Doha, Qatar was brilliantly orchestrated by Adam Weir (@AdamWeirSports) and his team at Aspetar. Run over three days and cram packed with information, I’m going to try and summarise the points that I found most interesting and thought provoking – please be aware these are my interpretations of what other speakers said and do not serve justice to the quality of the talks and presentations.

Yes, I was the only delegate in shorts and flip-flops

I have themed the findings into 3 main categories: Epidemiology; Adductor related pathologies & Femoral Acetabular Impingement (FAI) (Not an exclusive list of things discussed at the conference)

Introduction

What quickly became clear through the presenters was that even in 2014, we categorise injuries far too broadly. Consider the structures involved in the “Groin” and its no wonder why this area of the body see’s such huge injury occurrences.  Also, our terminology needs to be more accurate. Per Holmich (@PerHolmich) brilliantly said “Pubalgia is as specific as saying Kneealgia” we need to be more concise with our terms if we are going to understand the pathologies and management better.

That said, a lot of the current research into epidemiology does categories pathologies into hip /groin. So we have to go with the stats that are in front of us. And what are they…

Epidemiology

Of 110 multi-sport athletes assessed by Andreas Serner (@aserner), 76% of these injuries occurred in football-code sports. Markus Walden’s (@MarkusWalden) systematic review of 12 papers found that “Groin injuries” accounted for 9-18% of all injuries in mens football, with greater time loss of injury seen in tournament football compared to the regular season. Is this because of better monitoring at club level? Where medical teams know the players in a detail that international staff can’t due to limited exposure to players? Or as Walden says, is it due to the acute nature of injuries in tournaments due to reduced recovery and increased fatigue?

Both Walden and John Orchard (@DrJohnOrchard) found a greater incidence of groin injuries in men compared to women. It was suggested that the anatomical variance in womens hips puts them at more risk of lateral hip and knee pain rather than groin pain. The inguinal canal deficiency is also greater in men than womens.

Adductor Related Pathologies

Walden reports that 64% of groin related injuries are adductor related. This was supported by Serners paper with adductor longus being the most frequently injured of the adductor muscles. The picture below demonstrates Serners findings that 1/4 of all diagnosed injuries are negative on imaging, and that clinical presentations of rectus femoris & iliopsoas especially, often appear different on imaging.

Treat the player, not the scan!

Looking at risk factors for adductor pathologies, Jackie Whittaker (@jwhittak_physio) highlighted the basic but fundamental fact that previous injury is the biggest risk factor for future adductor pathology. Secondary to this, isolated adductor strength is a good indicator – ability to perform a squat is not! (Useful for those collating Injury Screening tools). Building on from Whittaker, Andrea Mosler (@AndreaBMosler) agreed that reduced strength coupled with positive pain on 45 degree adductor squeeze highlighted strong evidence for future groin pathology. Mosler summarised the following battery of tests for risk factors with adductor related groin pain:

Adductor strength – Strong evidence that low scores indicate future groin pain

BKFO (Bent knee fall out) – strong evidence that less flexible patients have greater risk of pathology

IR (Internal Rotation) – moderate evidence between decreased IR range and pathology

ER (External Rotation) in neutral – NO evidence to link decreased range and pathology. (Despite this lack of evidence, Geoff Verrall (@GeoffreyVerrall) does highlight a loss of ER in sport due tightening of the pubofemroal ligament and shortening of the adductors – improving this ER will help with force dissipation – so assessment is still valid!)

Eamonn Delahunt (@EamonnDelahunt) presented his research findings of squeeze assessments and groin pathologies, concluding that 45 degree squeeze has the highest sEMG and strength values (mmHg) of the 3 traditional squeeze measures. Contradictory to Moslers & Delahunts assessment of the adductors, Kristian Thorborg (@KThorborg) favoured long lever assessment when assessing for strength and pain. Pain provocation tests at a 0-degree squeeze is the best assessment to “rule adductor longus in.” While Delahunt drew his conclusions from a small population of gaelic footballers over a 6 month review period, Thorborg presented around 12 of his studies looking into the assessment of groin related pathologies. What is worth considering, is what structures are being affected when testing at these different ranges. As you’ll see below, it is a very complex and integrated part of the body.

Anthony Schache emphasised the importance of understanding the anatomy of the groin, in particular the soft tissue attachments. “Antomoy books provide discrete anatomy definitions which implies discrete anatomy – but this is not true.” The image below highlights the intimate attachments of surrounding structures in the groin.

Cadaveric groin anatomy – shows distinct LACK of “discrete anatomy” especially insertions

 

Per Holmich was keen to build further on these assessments as part of a clinical diagnosis, saying that adductor pain replicated with stress tests PLUS pain on palpation of the adductor origin (must be “the patients pain”) indicates that the adductors are the main driver of pain – any one identifying factor on its own is not enough to indicate a diagnosis. But, consider what Schache said about the anatomy – we would need to ensure that our palpation skills were incredibly accurate. You can see how being a centimetre out when palpating the pubic bone for the adductor origin could be the difference between adductor longus (AL) or gracilis, or rectus abdominus. For this reason, its important to take your time when palpating this area, although it can be uncomfortable for both practitioner and patient, but confidently & slowly working your way around the attachments could help improve your diagnosis.

Of significant interest regarding the adductors is the difference in anatomy. Stephanie Woodley describes the intramuscular tendon of AL as being 23% of the femur length, compared to 11% of femur length for adductor brevis. Also significant is the decreased vascularity of AL, less than that of brevis and both of these are less than that of gracilis. If we now consider that AL is the most commonly injured structure in the groin, could this be a cause of injury rates? At any rate, it is certainly a consideration worth knowing for healing times.

FAI

Both Damian Griffin and Joanne Kemp (@JoanneLKemp) were keen to clarify the terminology of FAI. FAI relates to the pain caused by a CAM or Pincer lesion,  CAM or pincer lesions don’t necessarily mean FAI.

“Athletes will undergo increased loads and greater demands on joints (ROM) than the general public, therefore impingements that are asymptomatic with ADL’s become FAI in sporting population” Damian Griffin.

Rintje Agricola describes an increased risk of FAI in males, especially in a sporting population but most interestingly reports that FAI is not prevalent in the non-athletes – therefore are we looking at a preventable pathology?

Increased loading over growth plate stimulates CAM deformity

We believe now that CAM deformities develop around 12-13 years old (Agricola and Kemp), the same age that IGF1, key for bone development, peaks in adolescent males. ER and flexion increase weight bearing through the femoral neck and lateral femoral head, around the growth plate, so increased physical activity at this stage of development will promote bony changes on these lateral surfaces. The population most at risk would athletes specialising in one sport, say football academies, where they increase their training volume and intensities as they physically mature.

If we understand this to be true, should we now seriously start to consider activity modification for children in this stage of development? Obviously we would need to understand stages and rate of physical maturity for individuals, and then there is a bigger debate of getting coaches on side for this change in loading.

The presence of a CAM deformity may not cause FAI in all individuals. However Schache gives an example where a CAM lesion may actually provide a false positive, or exacerbate existing symptoms. If we assessing IR range through a flexed position, a CAM lesion may act as a lever on the pubic synthesis and increase stress in this area. So a detailed assessment and knowledge of individual hip morphology would help us differentiate between an impingement or pubic synthesis stress.

Staying with this thought process of structural limitations through range, Morritz Tannast explained benefits of assessing rotation in neutral and through flexion. In a neutral hip, with legs hanging off the end of the plinth, we can assess the posterior wall of the hip joint. Extra-articular impingement in this position is most likely to come from the lesser trochanter and the ischium. In prone, we can assess the degree of ante torsion of the femoral head by looking at total range of rotation, so:

– Low antetorision would present as decreased IR and increased ER

– High antetorsion would therefore present as increased IR and decreased ER

Assessing through slight flexion, abduction and ER any extra articular impingement will be from the ischium up against the greater trochanter and our old friend, a CAM lesion. Griffin advocates the use of control and low speed with impingement tests, encouraging clinicians to explore the contact surface of the acetabular ring.

So far through this summary, we have stayed very insular with our assessment and anatomy. Kemp encourages the clinician to consider the control of the trunk with hip pathology. An increased anterior pelvic tile will equal and increased acetabular retroversion and a decreased IR at 90 hip flexion. Sometimes, it may not be the presence of a CAM deformity reducing that range, so on this final point summarising the hip and groin, I wold encourage people to still consider the bigger picture of the patient and what role the hip / groin plays in a combination of movement patterns and dysfunctions.

Taking this forward

There is a great deal, and I mean a huge amount, that I have not discussed. Secondary cleft signs of the pubic synthesis or surgical interventions for hip & groin pathology for example. But one topic I have not discussed that is probably glaringly obvious is the treatment and management.

In terms of exercise prescription, I think this will be led by your clinical abilities to diagnose the pathology (Remember Serners findings above, don’t just treat the scan!) Hopefully this summary will encourage to you read more of the presenters own works, or maybe it has re-enforced your understanding of what is a complex structure in the body. Essentially management of this area is much like any other in the body, we identify complications or restrictions and we address them. Usually this is a global approach, looking at the whole kinetic chain  – remembering that this conference focused on a very key, but isolated area of that chain.

If you are still reading at this point, thanks for taking the time to read through what is arguably the most complex and detailed blog I’ll probably every write!

For more info, check out the Aspetar youtube channel here (updates coming soon) or follow them on twitter (@AspetarQatar) or search the has tag #Groin2014

Yours in sport

Sam