- Arthritis
- ACL & MCL
- Meniscus injury
- Ligament tears
- Tendonitis
- Patellar pain
- Hypermobility
- Post-surgery rehab
- Runners’ Knee
- Degeneration
- Bakers’ Cyst
Conditions – Knee Pain
Knee pain can significantly impact your quality of life. From stopping you playing the sports you love, to making day-to-day tasks difficult, knee pain can be a problem that seems impossible to treat.
At Purpose Physiotherapy, we are experienced in treating the following knee conditions:
At our clinics in Thirroul and Woonona, Purpose Physiotherapy has a team of experienced physiotherapists and exercise physiologists that are experienced in treating knee pain. Our approach to helping you overcome your knee pain is as follows:
- Comprehensive assessment to determine both the diagnosis and the root causes (we may use imaging/scans where necessary).
- Tests and measurements to ensure we monitor progress and improvements.
- Holistic view of your entire body, including posture, alignment, mobility, strength, sleep, stress, nutrition and your nervous system.
- Treatment plan that relieves pain and targets the root causes, including massage, joint manipulation, dry-needling, exercise programs (core strength, Pilates and movement retraining) and education. This plan will specifically target your individual goals.
- Ongoing prevention options through clinical Pilates and small-group exercise.
By taking this approach, our team will be able to help get you not only moving with Purpose but living with Purpose as well.
Knee Pain FAQ's
- The sciatic nerve which originates in the lower back runs down the legs and branches off into smaller neural outputs. These nerves help innervate the muscles down the leg. If there is an issue of tightness, stiffness or even pain in the back this can impact on the sciatic nerve and create issues of weakness, sensation and feeling down the leg
- Knee pain is a common lower limb ailment that is most often found in runners and females.
- Knee pain in runners is due to the consistent load that goes through the knee, resulting in an overload injury, it mostly arises from poor running technique, most commonly with over striders.
- Knee pain is more common in females due to and increased Q-angle. The Q-angle is the angle from the hips down to the knees. This angle creates a more internally rotated knee, which in turn creates an increase in pressure on the knees, especially medially (inside). Without adequate strength this will thereby create an overload injury on the knees.
- You can have very serious injuries surrounding some of the ligaments in the knee. The ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) is a well-known ligament in the knee which prevents the tibia (main shin bone) from going too far forward with many bodyweight activities. If this is ruptured it can be very hard to heal. Return to sport after this injury can be up to 12 months and some studies have suggested, that to return to full pre-injury capacity can be up to 2-3years
- If knee pain left untreated it can be irritable and also lead to a decreased cartilage area, leading to Osteoarthritis and a possible knee replacement later in life
- Overload through the knee without the adequate strength
- With the increased q-angle in females, this can usually mean a decrease in strength for their buttocks and lateral thigh muscles. These muscles help stabilise the hip. If these muscles aren’t strong enough to stabilise the hip the pressure can then run down onto the knee
- Poor shoes
- Rarely are people’s feet perfect, so if you have owned and worn a pair of shoes for a substantial amount of time you will start to create a wear and tear of the sole. The sole will start to rub away and thereby you will start to land on an uneven surface. This uneven landing, whether it be on the front back, inside or outside of the foot will create added pressure up the knee due to muscles working harder in keeping the foot stable. This will thereby create an overload effect and knee pain arising.
- Trauma
- Certain sports are more susceptible to knee injuries, such as soccer, basketball and netball. This is because these sports require a lot of jumping, change of direction and quick deceleration. In some cases, 7-8x BW can run through your leg with some of quick deceleration actions. This can cause a great amount of stress through the ligaments that make up the knee. These sports also have and tendency for someone to be knocked off balance while in the air, which can mean they will land on their leg outside their centre of gravity or base of support, which in some cases the knee cannot cope with.
- Decreased cartilage
- Poor strength in the musculature above and below the knee means that more pressure is going onto the cartilage in the knee, known as the meniscus. The meniscus acts as a shock absorber whilst walking, running, jumping etc. If this pressure continues the meniscus will then start to wear away which means that the main thigh bone (femur) and main shin bone (tibia) can then start the press on each other during the above activities. This can be very painful and then in future lead to the need of a knee replacement
