Sprained Ankle Health Video

Video Transcript

DR. THOMAS CLANTON: Ankle sprains are the most common time-loss injury that we see in sports. They occur on the outside of the ankle or on the inside of the ankle. This is the deltoid ligament area on the inside. These are the anterior lateral ligaments on the outside, and then sometimes you have a sprain that occurs to the connecting ligaments between the two bones at the lower leg between the tibia and the fibula. That's called a syndesmosis injury or a high-ankle sprain. These sprains can produce a great deal of pain, swelling and limited ability to participate in your sport, so if you can prevent them that's certainly the better way to go. This prevention process can occur by strengthening the muscles around your ankle, making sure that you warm up well and stretch your Achilles tendon well so that a tight Achilles tendon is not going to limit your movement and cause an ankle sprain. And having good supportive shoe wear can also be helpful. In many athletes, they treat their ankles with taping or bracing, and that can also provide some degree of prevention for these injuries. Once an injury does occur and sometimes they are unavoidable then the typical RICE formula of treatment for the condition is helpful. That's rest, ice, compression and elevation. So that's the way to start off in the treatment process. And sometimes immobilization is necessary with either a walking boot or a cast or a form of bracing. Very rarely, do you need to do surgery to treat these injuries. Fortunately, most of them heal well with non-operative treatment. But in rare circumstances particularly with high-ankle sprains that are unstable, surgery is actually necessary in order to stabilize the ankle.