Return to sports after femoroacetabular impingement surgery

The painful hip and the associated lesions represent an increasingly recognized issue in athletes. In recent years femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) has been identified as one of the most important causes of hip and groin pain in young athletes as well as a possible cause of an early onset of osteoarthritis of the hip. Athletes participating in pivotal sports (e. g. soccer and basketball), in sports with high hip flexion (e. g. martial arts, hockey and speed skating) as well as sports that involve an extraordinary range of joint motion (e. g. dancing) are particularly at risk. Apart from relief of pain and prevention of further damage to the hip, returning to sports is one of the main reasons for patients to undergo surgery. Thus, return to sports plays an important role in a successful outcome. For patients with a timely diagnosis, the clinical outcome and return to sports after surgically treated FAI is very good and athletes can expect a postoperative recovery of the previous sports level. The evidence for postoperative rehabilitation schemes is weak but in general, four stages are distinguished. Whereas the first stage is time constrained and is important to protect tissue healing, the further stages are mainly criteria-based and necessitate sport-specific loading. After completion of the last stage athletes should be able to make an unrestricted resumption of sports activities. Preliminary criteria for return to sports after FAI surgery have been described but are still under development; however, patient motivation and the degree of cartilage damage seem to be the most important factors for return to sports and a successful outcome. © 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.