Evidence / Sources / E29
Effects of NMES After ACL Reconstruction on Quadriceps Strength, Function, and Patient-Oriented Outcomes. JOSPT 2010
What it can tell you
That NMES augments quadriceps strength after ACL reconstruction when dosed adequately — evidence for a mechanism (activation failure, not just atrophy) that is plausibly present after MACI too.
What it cannot
Anything in cartilage repair patients. And the dosage threshold is the crux: stimulation below roughly 50% of maximal voluntary contraction is common in practice and useless.
Everything on this site that leans on E29 — 5 claims
Program · Stage II (patellofemoral)“Neuromuscular electrical stimulation — Studied in ACL reconstruction and knee replacement, not in cartilage repair. Worth asking your PT about rather than assuming it transfers.”Program · Stage II (tibiofemoral)“Neuromuscular electrical stimulation — Studied in ACL reconstruction and knee replacement, not in cartilage repair — the canonical tibiofemoral protocol prescribes it from those li…”Exercise Library · Neuromuscular electrical stimulation“The randomized and review evidence for neuromuscular electrical stimulation after knee surgery comes from ACL reconstruction and total knee arthroplasty, not from cartilage repair.”What we don't know · № 07“No supporting modality — CPM dose, bracing, NMES, hydrotherapy, blood-flow restriction, proprioceptive work — has ever been isolated as a variable in cartilage repair.”Why this · Why a stimulation machine, and why it is worth asking about the dose“Electrical stimulation is prescribed here for the activation deficit rather than for strength directly, and its evidence comes from ACL reconstruction and knee replacement rather t…”
Read it like a sceptic
Reviews in this area are broadly supportive but heterogeneous — protocols, timing, and dose vary across the underlying trials.
Population
ACL reconstruction — a different population from MACI itself. Wherever this source appears, that flag appears with it.
Selection policy
Sources enter the registry through docs/research — the evidence table records design, population, and size for every entry, and pages cannot cite anything outside it.