What Should I Expect From Knee Physical Therapy?

The knee joint is very important for our daily movements. If something goes wrong, we will "have trouble walking." The knee joint is the most complex, most leveraged, and most vulnerable joint in the human body. In addition, the knee joint is irreversible. ^[1] Protecting the knee joint cannot wait until it is sick, but should start from middle age.

Knee protection

There are many causes of bone and joint pain. Most joint pains that occur in daily life are not caused by trauma, but because the joints are cold for a long time, or due to the large temperature difference between warm and cold when the seasons change, causing muscles and

Knee joint swelling and pain: Most patients with meniscus injuries have a history of trauma. After the injury, the swelling and pain around the knee joint gradually begin. The pain often occurs in a certain position during exercise. After changing the position, the pain disappears. Located in the medial and lateral space of the knee joint.

Soft legs: Pain is obvious when the knee joint is moving, and the injured lower limbs dare not exert strength. It is more obvious when going up and down the stairs. If you feel that the lower limbs are weak, they will become soft. The symptoms will be severe when going downstairs.

Muscle atrophy: With the accumulation of time, the pain will increase, and the load will increase. The lower limbs will not dare to exercise, the muscles of the thighs (quadriceps femoris) gradually shrink and become thinner, and their mobility will decrease.

Symptoms of interlocking: Patients with severe injuries may have knee interlocking, that is, when a certain action is taken, the knee joint is suddenly stuck and cannot move, and it is accompanied by severe pain. You need to slowly move to a certain position before you can continue to move. Accompanied by a popping sound. ^[2]

Clinical physical examination: The site of knee tenderness is usually the lesion. This examination method is of great significance for the diagnosis of meniscus injury and the determination of its location. During the examination, the knee joint was in a semi-flexed position, and the knee joint was pressed point by point from the back to the back and inside of the knee joint. There was fixed tenderness at the meniscus injury. While pressing, the knee joint is passively flexed and extended or the calf is rotated, the pain is more obvious, and sometimes abnormal meniscus can be touched.

Squeeze compression examination: The patient lies on his back, holding the ankle in one hand, and slowly flexing the hip and knee as much as possible while holding the knee in one hand, and then abduct, abduct, and abduct the calf. , Internal rotation, or adduction, external rotation, gradually straighten. The presence of pain or noise indicates a meniscus injury, and the location of the injury can be basically determined based on the pain and sound.

Abrasive examination: The patient is lying prone, the knee joint is flexed, the examiner holds the ankle with both hands and presses the lower leg while performing internal and external rotation. The damaged meniscus is painful by being squeezed and ground. On the other hand, if the lower leg is lifted up, and then perform internal and external rotation, there is no pain.

Examination of flexion or overextension: The patient lies flat, and the examiner forces the knee joint to excessively straighten or overflex. If the pain is caused by overextension, it indicates the anterior meniscus injury; if the pain is caused by overextension, it indicates the posterior meniscus injury.

Magnetic Resonance Examination (MRI): It is the imaging method with the highest positive rate and the highest accuracy rate for diagnosing meniscus injury. The accuracy rate is as high as 98%. It can make a preliminary assessment of the degree of meniscus injury. ^[2]

Knee pain is one of the common orthopedic diseases in the clinic. Because the knee joint is an important anatomical feature of the human body and the synovial membrane of the knee joint, the disease has the characteristics of greater pain and easy recurrence. Therefore, their daily treatment and protection are very important.

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First of all, you should pay attention to changing positions frequently, and don't work too long in one posture. If you need to change positions when standing for a long time, or sit for a while, it is not good to work on a long squat. In short, do not fix the knee joint in the same position for a long time.

Secondly, pay attention to keeping warm. Because the knee joints lack the protection of muscles and adipose tissue, they cannot get enough heat, so the temperature is lower than other parts, so do not sit in a cold and humid place. Many young people think that they are young and strong, blowing air-conditioning cold wind after sweating in summer, or wearing single skirts in winter, which causes the joints to be cold and blame them.

It is recommended not to climb the mountain for a long time, reduce the climbing stairs, and avoid the knee-intensive actions such as squatting and scrubbing the floor. Elderly people do not go up the stairs too fast, and don't take two or three steps at a time. It is best to hold the railings when you go up the stairs and wait for your feet to step on the same step before taking the next step.

Some people think that knee pain is caused by bone spurs in the joints. Only by squatting up and grinding away the bone spurs can the problem be solved. As a result, the disease is not cured, but the joint pain is getting worse and worse. The correct method is to exercise without or with little weight, especially to strengthen the quadriceps.

There is a powerful muscle in front of the thigh, called the quadriceps, which not only stabilizes the knee joint, but also prevents the development of knee osteoarthritis. The quadriceps exercise is best done by static exercises. Sit on the edge of the chair, straighten your legs forward, follow your heels to the ground, then straighten and lift your legs up, so that your heels are 10-15 cm off the ground. Keep contracting for 3-5 seconds, then slowly lower your legs. This exercise patient should do 2-3 groups every day, each group is repeated 10-15 times. At the beginning of the exercise, the calf is not weight-bearing, and then an ankle bag is tied to the ankle, and the weight is gradually increased.

Swimming exercises are best for the knee joint. Because the human body and the ground are basically parallel when swimming, all joints are relaxed under floating conditions, which are joint and muscle activities without load, and are also good for improving cardiopulmonary function. ^[4]