If you have ever spent some time on a treadmill or riding a bicycle, or sometimes just spent a whole day on your feet, you have probably felt some aches and soreness in your knees afterwards. Each day, our knees really do take a beating as we move about. They need to bend over and over again, and also absorb a huge amount of impact force with each step. As we age, our knees going through this “abuse” are more prone to being injured, either due to natural wear or due to a sudden accident.
Commonly occurring knee injuries include:
- Fractures: Falls and car accidents can result in a fracture in one of the three bones that make up the knee: the femur, tibia, and patella.
- Dislocation: Patellar dislocation in the knee, sometimes called an unstable kneecap, occurs often when someone slips and tries to catch their balance, twisting their knee awkwardly.
- Tears: Within the structure of the knee, there are numerous ligaments and a meniscal layer, all of which are sensitive to tearing if a knee joint is overused or twisted suddenly.
Any sort of knee injury can be disabling, literally taking someone off their feet. Following injuries that are not completely debilitating, walking can be unnerving and uneasy, the feeling of the knee about to “give way” a constant worry as a person moves around. In order to alleviate the pain and restore mobility, medical treatments are often necessary. But what treatment option should be explored?
Avoid Surgery with Physical Therapy
To put it simply, surgery is a bit of gamble each time, especially when it involves a highly-complicated part of the body like the knee. The slightest slipup on part of a surgeon could cause more damage to the sensitive tendons around the knee. Even if the surgery goes perfectly, the recovery can be painful and keep a patient off their feet for a long time.
Physical therapy options can help entirely avoid all of the complications and risks. With strength conditioning and balance rehabilitation sessions, a patient can begin experiencing a lessening in knee pain and an increase in knee functionality without surgery. Although physical therapy treatments should always be customized exactly to the unique needs of a single patient, it generally begins with gentle practices or exercises and gradually increases the focus as time goes on, up until the patient can comfortably stand and walk again.
Our Monmouth County physical therapists at ProFysio Physical Therapy are all Doctors of Physical Therapy with further specializations in orthopedics and orthopedic manual therapy. When you come to our clinic for assistance, you can be confident that the solutions we outline for you are capable of alleviating your knee pain or lessening the severity of your knee injury. Contact us online today to set up a consultation – we accept most insurance plans.