We are often excellent at rehabilitating range of motion and strength following injuries, but how good are we at returning a player to full contact, without recurrence of injury? In returning a player from an injury, we must gradually reintroduce contact, as well as training load. This blog explores an example of a return to contact protocol, to prevent subsequent injuries.

Three weeks ago, I attended the Australia Physiotherapy Association Momentum 2017 conference in Sydney. It was my first time attending a conference, and it was amazing! I expected to feel brain-dead and be sick of research and statistics by the end of the conference. Instead, I learnt something from every presentation, caught up with a lot of colleagues and friends, and challenged my current understanding of physiotherapy.So I thought I would give a summary of my conference, the interesting tid-bits I learnt, or journal articles which piqued my interest...

Ankle syndesmosis injuries are becoming increasingly more common. Given we are seeing more syndesmosis ligament injuries, we need to ensure we are as effective at managing syndesmosis injuries as lateral ankle sprains.

This rugby season, I have treated nine players who sustained ankle syndesmosis injuries. To familiarise myself with the anatomy, I pulled out my trusty Moore Anatomy textbook, however found the information available very limited. The goal of this blog is to detail the anatomy and function of the ankle syndesmosis, to allow more effective and efficient treatment of this region.