UCI Health sports medicine surgeon Melissa Albersheim, MD, recently visited Coury & Buehler Physical Therapy to share her expertise on hip microinstability, a commonly missed diagnosis in active patients with groin pain and snapping hips.

“It can be really confusing when [patients] come in with an MRI that shows a cam lesion and labral tear. They think they need surgery. But if you rehab them appropriately for the iliopsoas, 80% can return to function without an operation. If you fix the labrum but don’t strengthen the muscle, the pain and snapping persist, we didn’t really help them,” Albersheim said.

UCI Health offers unique hip preservation and reconstruction services, which include options from non-surgical treatment, cartilage regeneration, arthroscopic surgery, osteotomy-based reconstruction, and less invasive hip replacement.