Ankle Sprains and Orthopaedic Surgery

Featuring Dr. Alastair Younger, MB, Ch.B, M.Sc, Ch.M, F.R.C.S.(C), Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Surgeon
Ankle Sprains and Orthopaedic Surgery
Duration: 2 minutes, 27 seconds

Sports injuries happen often in ankles and feet and there’s lots of soccer players and almost every athlete in the province at some point has sprained their ankle.

Most of the time these sprains can be treated by bracing, physiotherapy, ice and 99 percent of them get better. On occasion, they don’t get better and there’s reasons within the ankle or around the ankle that that might happen.

If you look at the ankle, there’s a number of places that can get injured after a sprain or sports injury. When the ligaments on the outside of the ankle get torn or broken, the ankle becomes unstable and these may need to be repaired.

Within the joint, however, if you have recurrent sprains, the joint surface can get damaged by the sprains and as a result, there can be holes within the cartilage that can cause a lot of discomfort.

After an ankle sprain, you can end up rupturing the tendons that are on the outside of the ankle that go between the fibula and the talus or the fibula and the calcaneus. And this can cause ongoing instability in your ankle but each time you roll your ankle, you can damage the cartilage within the ankle joint.

Sometimes these can repair, sometimes they remain unstable. The cartilage damage, however, often needs surgical treatment and the cartilage damage affects the talus either on the top side on this shoulder or on the top side on this shoulder there.

On occasion, it’s beneficial to put a scope into the joint and clean up those areas of damage so that they hopefully stop hurting you. If you have one of these holes however with an unstable ankle, it’s a good idea not only to look inside the joint with the arthroscope, but also to try and repair the ligaments on the outside of the ankle to make sure that the ankle is stable and that you don’t continue to roll it and damage the cartilage within the joint.

So with these types of injuries, you may need to talk to your physiotherapist or your coach or your family doctor to see how you can make sure that you’re getting the best treatment for your foot injury.

And on occasion, your family doctor may choose to send you onto an orthopedic surgeon who may be able to help you with an operation to try and improve the function of your foot for sport.

Presenter: Dr. Alastair Younger, Orthopaedic Surgeon, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Orthopaedic Surgeon