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knee injury Archives » Physical Therapy Clinic | CA | ReVITALize Rehab Club

Physical Therapy Clinic | CA | ReVITALize Rehab Club

Tag: knee injury

  • ACL Rehab 101: The Breakdown on How Not to Break Down (The What?!)

    ACL tear is a common sports and orthopedic injury that I want to spend some time simplifying.  So you just had ACL surgery or injured it and need to know everything to succeed?  What is your anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and what is its role in knee care? Who is at risk?  How do I prevent an ACL tear?  I have knee pain (during rehab) and years after.  What is appropriate for my ACL and what should I stay away from?  These are the questions I hope to shed light on.  The American Physical Therapy Association has developed a Clinical Practice Guidelines that unified the information and methods of how to rehabilitate from a tear.  I will add my two cents in how to bulletproof your knee and reVITALize your knee into superhuman capacity and performance.  Lets delve into the technical.

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    How does the knee joint work?

    The two long bones, femur and tibia, join to make the knee joint.  This complex joint looks and function like a hinge.  A knee is design to straighten and bend with minimal rotation.  To make this example simple, lets say the knee functions like a “true” hinge guiding a door to open and close.  If you can understand this concept then you can make sense of all the nonsense out there in the internet and what advice you may hear.  A knee is in a healthy position when you bend, squat, lunge, jog, and bike.  All of these activities requires little to no rotation.  The meniscus and knee ligaments limit the rotation.  This is why our meniscus and ligaments are susceptible to aging faster.  Our hips and ankle provide most of the pivoting and twisting.  When we sit too much or reduce the amount of total body movement training, our body “dumbs” the impact of our hips and ankles.  We have become a knee dominant society. (more…)

  • 3 Knee Arthritis Exercises Prescribed by a Knee and Sports Medicine Rehab Specialist

    As the only Holistic Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Physical Therapist in Long Beach, I marvel at the simplicity of our knee design.  The knee architecture is deceiving in my journey of helping people stay active when dealing with arthritis in knee.  This article will summarize my favorite 3 knee arthritis exercises that I prescribe to many who are successfully avoiding or delaying a total knee replacement at my clinic.

    Although the knee is simple in design it relies on your whole body to capture the functionality of the knee.   What I mean to say is that the knee is a victim of how you use your whole body: ankle/foot, hips, pelvis, spine, shoulder, head/neck, and inner ear system.

    Here are three quick examples to help you see the big picture.

    There are more options and hope to counteract the stress to your knee. We understand that when you have been told to have an unchangeable fact of having knee arthritis, mensicus tear or bad alignment, it is very hard to believe that you can still function and stay active. Here is a list of people that we have helped over and over again.

    • If you cannot feel the ground well, how can you expect your knee to know how to help you to walk, navigate stairs or run?
    • If we put you on a rocky raft where you definitely will have balance issues (many do not know they have this until tested), you will automatically try to stay low to the ground to stay safe.  Your knee muscles are compressing your meniscus and arthritic knee joint to protect you from stumbling.
    • Did you know that there is a sensory nerve called the saphenous nerve that gets tugged and tensed when you have digestive disorder?  This nerve mimics medial (inside) knee pain.

    Consumer Report recently wrote an article that says having knee surgery is too risky.  There is a recent research article that demonstrated having knee meniscus clean-up has the same result as a sham surgery?  Sham surgery is where they open up to portal incision and stitch them back up without doing anything inside.

    The article supports what the recent Orthopedic and Physical Therapy research have been talking about for the past 10 years, but not publicized enough.  A top surgeon can fix a knee design but it is the whole body that drives how you make of your “surgically-fixed” knee.  You can improve your chances of having less knee pain, even when diagnosed with arthritis or meniscus injury if you read along.

    I have been a Sports Physical Therapist and Fitness Performance Specialist for 13+ years and clinical frustrations came when I use to chase after all the fancy exercises and therapy techniques.  When I would ask the gurus of knee surgery and rehab, I would get a sense that everyone talked a nice game but had the same struggles as me.  Reassuring for me but didn’t help me solve the difficulties of helping a small portion of people in pain.

    (more…)

  • ACL 101: Common 6 Pitfalls of ACL Care (When Avoiding Surgery)

    bike4This article is my latest continuation of the ACL 101 series.  ReVITALize Rehab Club is designed to simplify the medical jargon so every member can be empowered in their own care.  Social media and medical information in the internet are notorious for giving snippets of fitness and medical care and I want to bridge that gap so every member can get in the heads of the medical and fitness professionals to make the best decisions for themselves.

    Recent studies showed that 60% of ACL rehab make a full recovery, less than 60% return to sport, and more than 50% develop knee osteoarthritis by middle age.  My goal is to inform our club members on how to not fall into this category of less optimal outcome.   Most studies are happy to demonstrate above average statistical significant, but if one desires to bulletproof their knee, one needs to get the upper hand in short and long term care.

    Read “ACL 101: the Breakdown of How Not to Break Down (The What?!)” and “ACL 101: How to Be the Last One Standing (After Surgery)” in which I wrote about how to test your ACL, the shift in ACL care, risk factors, and what to expect after the early phase of ACL surgery.  Having an ACL tear is not all doom and gloom.  Did you know that research has categorized ACL patients into 3 groups.  The three groups are: “copers” without brace, “copers” with brace, and “non-copers” needing surgery.  The name of the game with the first two groups is to teach the whole body (notice I did not say knee) to find a different strategy to move efficiently with a weakened ACL.  I will take this idea a step further and will teach you how to bulletproof your knee to not be another statistic of having meniscus or total knee replacement surgery in the future.

    Common Pitfalls During ACL Care (To Cope Well or After ACL Surgery)

    1. De-emphasizing the basics. (more…)

  • Diagnosis: Knee Banger Part 2 (The Fix)

    Knee Sport Injury

    So you fell on your knee and you want to know how to help yourself to become reVITALized.  Part 1 of this series helped you to understand how the knee works and the relationship to your knee pain. Today, I will write about self-treatment techniques.  Let’s get technical and dive into the medical science.

    The pulley system was discussed in relationship to the patellofemoral (knee cap) joint.  Our main goal is to obtain normalcy of the pulley including the user itself.  If you analyze a pulley system, the condition of the groove and rope with its direction of pull impacts the mechanics of the pulley.  The size of the circular shape pulley and the strength of the user determines the effectiveness of the pulley.  I just laid out four variables to control, the condition, direction of pull, size of the pulley and the user.
    (more…)

  • Diagnosis: Knee Banger Part 1 (The What?!)

    Our first in depth analysis of a member’s question is in regards to a recent traumatic injury to his knee.  He fell and banged his knee two days ago and now it hurts to walk.  The puzzle begins in my mind.
    (more…)