What’s wrong with my knee?
This is the first question people typically ask when they come in to our practice with knee pain but the better question is probably is there something wrong with my knee?
Not all pain means damage or disease but our very first job is establishing do you have anything to worry about; and whether you do or you don’t, what is the best way forward for you?
So how do we work out what’s going on with your knee pain?
We start with a regular, stock standard injury history and orthopedic & neurological assessment that involves pushing and pulling on a heap of different anatomical structures like muscles and tendons and ligaments. This is to work out what sort of pain you likely have and to see if we can isolate where the pain might be coming from but that doesn’t tell us a heap about why this might be happening or how we’re best to try and change it.
To work these things out we’ll combine what we know from your history and conventional exam with a functional assessment of how you load the knee in various everyday movements like squats, lunges and hops.
This video gives you a little sneak peek of some of the things we might look at when assessing your knee so you have an idea of what we’re looking at when we examine you.
Why your examination matters as much as your treatment
This style of assessment is quite fluid and allows us to experiment with your movement and loading strategies. This gives us some idea of why things have gone awry but most importantly it gives us an idea of the ways in which we can increase your functional capacity and decrease your pain.
This assessment is a critical point of difference because while many therapists take a pain dependent approach (meaning they enforce rest and wait for your pain to resolve) we know that all the evidence suggests we need to tackle things the other way around. That is, we need to increase your functional capacity to decrease your pain.
If you’re struggling with knee pain, make an appointment to have it assessed with us today.
Want to know more?
You can learn more about the MOH approach to knee pain and improving hip function by checking out blogs in the MOH knee series;
- Osteopathic treatment for knee pain
- Functional exercises for your knees
- Pilates and your knees
- Single Leg Deadlifts for Hamstrings
- Myotherapy for knee pain
For more information, ideas and exercises check out our Health Tips blog.
