Knee Injuries

I’ve been blessed in my life not having any knee problems after all my strenuous and high impact exercises I’ve been doing all these years. For me, prevention is ultimately important to offset such injuries.

Well if you do have a knee injury, here’s a short guide.

In sports that place great pressure on the knees, especially with twisting forces, it is common to tear one or more ligaments or cartilages.

An increasingly common victim to injury is the anterior cruciate ligament or “ACL”. The ACL is often torn as a result of a rapid direction change while running or some other, violent twisting motion.

The ACL can also be torn by extending the knee forcefully beyond its normal range. Other structures of the knee may also damaged together with the ACL. A particularly severe example involves the “unhappy triad” of torn MCL, ACL, and medial meniscus.

The unhappy triad typically arises from a combination of inwards forcing and twisting of the knee.

Surgical interventions

Before the advent of arthroscopy and arthroscopic surgery, patients having surgery for a torn ACL required at least nine months of rehabilitation. With current techniques, such patients may be walking without crutches in two weeks, and playing some sports in but a few months.

In addition to developing new surgical procedures, ongoing research is looking into underlying problems which may increase the likelihood of an athlete suffering a severe knee injury.

These findings may lead to effective preventive measures, especially in female athletes, who have been shown to be especially vulnerable to ACL tears from relatively minor trauma.

Articular cartilage repair treatment :

1. Arthroscopic debriment of the knee( arthroscopic lavage).
2. Mosaïc-plasty.
3. Microfracture( Ice-picking).
4. Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation.
5. Osteochondral Autograft and Allografts.