Knee Injuries

Since knee injuries are very common in all sports, i thought that i would be a good idea To bring this fact sheet to your attention.

The knee is a complex joint, and though one can sustain several kinds of injuries to it usualy, the soft tissue, not the bone, are injured.

The most common knee injuries are:

* a sprain - overstretching one or more ligaments through twisting or wrenching
* a strain - a tendon or muscle is overstretched
* torn ligaments
* a torn meniscus
* bleeding in your knee joint - this is usually caused by a torn ligament

The knee has four ligaments, all can be over stretched or torn, the most common is the ACL

ACL is about half the strength of your medial collateral ligament (MCL). It’s the most commonly injured knee ligament in sport.

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) runs from the outside of the back of your thigh bone to the inside of the front (anterior) of your shin bone. Cruciate means in the form of a cross. The two cruciate ligaments cross over each other - the ACL crosses in front of the posterior cruciate ligament. Together they help to stabilise front to back movements of the knee.

Other soft tissue injuries include tearing the miniscus and the patellar tendon that connect the knee cap to the thigh muscle.
the symptoms for knee injuries are

The symptoms for most ligament injuries will be similar, no matter which one has been damaged. These include:

* pain
* swelling
* instability

If you completely rupture your ACL, you may hear a popping sound. You may also feel something snap inside your knee, as if it has given way.

A meniscus injury will be painful on either the inside or outside of your knee joint (depending on which meniscus is damaged) and you may have some swelling. Your knee may lock or feel as if it’s catching.

If you damage your patellar tendon you won’t be able to straighten your leg properly. You will probably also have pain, swelling and weakness.

Treatment - of course one should alway go to the doctor in case of injury, even if one thinks that it is not “serious” just to make sure that that is the case

but there are standard first aid treatments for knee injuries

All soft tissue injuries to the knee should receive the same immediate first aid treatment. This follows the RICE procedure.

* Rest the injury initially, then reintroduce movement so you don’t lose too much muscle strength.
* Ice packs or a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a towel should be applied to your knee to reduce swelling and bruising. You shouldn’t apply ice directly to your skin as it can give you an “ice burn” - place a cloth between the ice and skin.
* Compress the joint by bandaging it to support the injury and help decrease swelling.
* Elevate the knee and keep it supported.

Further treatment will vary according to which ligaments you have damaged and how badly. It will also depend on how much sport you do. If you don’t put much demand on your knee, resting it and following a programme of strengthening physiotherapy exercises may be sufficient.

Of course,even better than knowing how to treat knee injuries is knowing how to prevent them:
exercise regularly to strengthen muscles that support the ligaments and alway always do at least 10 minutes of warm up exercising.