Your Guide to Translating the Injury Report

Added by Katie Boushie on January 7, 2013.

“He’s out of the season with grade 2 Medial Collateral Ligament and grade 3 Anterior Cruciate Ligament sprains, to be repaired arthroscopically next week.”

At first, an injury report may not even sound like English. To add to the confusion so many medical terms also have a (sometimes incorrect) “layman’s” translation. In this article I have created a list of common medical descriptions and injuries. 

Location terms

Distal/ Proximal- Proximal means closer to the head, distal means further from.

Medial/ Lateral- Medial means closer to the midline of the body (a medial ankle sprain is the inside of the ankle, lateral is the outside)

Injury Terms

Sprain- Caused by stretching of ligaments (connect bone to bone) past their normal range of motion.

Strain- Caused by stretching of muscle past its normal range of motion.

Sprains and strains are graded based on severity.

Grade 1= stretching of tissue

Grade 2= partial tearing of tissue

Grade 3= full tear (rupture) of tissue

Tendinitis/ Tendinosis- Inflammation of a tendon (example: biceps tendon in shoulder) Often occurs gradually and because of overuse.

Bursitis- Inflammation of bursa, fluid filled sacs that help decrease friction.

Contusion- Most often called a bruise, caused by a direct blow or compression to soft tissue; may present with a hematoma (swelling or mass of blood).

Impingement- Narrowing of space within a joint and compression of tendons and bursa. Often occurs from overuse and is most common in the shoulder. 

Dislocation- Displacement of a bone from its normal position in a joint (example: shoulder “popping out”).  To “reduce” a dislocation means to correct the alignment.

Subluxation- A partial or incomplete dislocation (slightly out of place).

Fracture- Break in a bone

Fractures may be displaced or nondisplaced (based on alignment), closed or open (based on whether the bone is penetrating the skin)

Surgical Terms

Arthroscopic- The surgeon uses an endoscope (a small light and camera) to help perform the surgery inside of a joint, in comparison to other surgeries this is considered minimally invasive. ACL reconstruction is most frequently performed arthroscopically, if done well this will leave minimal scarring.

Open surgery- The surgeon cuts through tissue to have a full view of what is involved.

Graft- Replacement tissue

Graft tissue is used in ACL reconstruction surgery and may either come from the athlete’s Patellar tendon (knee), hamstring, or an allograft (from a cadaver)