From Osteoarthritis to ACL Tears, Our Team is Here to Help
Do you have pain or weakness in your knee that’s keeping you from living the healthy, active lifestyle you crave? Knee pain is a common complaint in Canada, and it can develop due to various factors and conditions. Understanding the potential causes of your knee pain is the first step in finding relief!
Knee pain is a wide-ranging concept. The sensation and intensity of the pain can range from a faint twinge to a sharp, shooting discomfort. Joint weakness or a “giving out” feeling might accompany your pain, or you may be struggling with pain alone.
At Newcastle Physiotherapy, our physiotherapists can evaluate your symptoms and help you identify potential sources for your pain. From there, we can help you find solutions to that pain–or provide rehabilitation services if your condition requires surgery.
Knees are crucial to movement. If your knee is impaired, your day-to-day activities become more challenging. To learn more about the common causes of knee pain–and how physiotherapy can help–call our physiotherapy clinic today!
Potential Causes of Knee Pain
Firstly, it’s important to determine that a knee impairment is the source of your knee pain. While pain is a useful tool for telling us something is wrong, it’s not always the most accurate measurement. For example, you might have an issue with your hip that’s the real source of the problem, and your knee pain is actually just the symptom. That’s why identifying a source of pain is so important.
Our physiotherapists can help you know for sure if your knee is the source of your knee pain. If it is, we can narrow down which specific injury or condition is causing it. Here are some of the most common:
- Osteoarthritis: This condition occurs when the cartilage in your knee starts to break down. It’s an incredibly common condition in Canada, affecting 13.6% of adults 20 years or older. While it is a part of the aging process for some people, it can occur in younger people who’ve had injuries to their knee joints.
- Joint Sprains: If one of the four major ligaments in your knee overstretches or tears, it can lead to pain, swelling, weakness, and loss of mobility. Perhaps the most well-known example of this type of injury is an ACL tear, which most commonly affects athletes.
- Muscle Strains: Sometimes, damage to the muscles around your knee can cause knee pain. For example, overstraining your hamstring muscles may lead to pain behind your knee.
- Tendonitis: Tendinitis is an inflammation of the tendons, the tissue that connects your muscles to your bones. Patella tendonitis is a common form of knee inflammation.
- Bursitis: Bursitis is an inflammation of the bursae, small, fluid-filled sacs around your knees that helps reduce friction between muscles, ligaments, and bones and allows structures to glide and slide past one another with ease.
No matter what condition or injury is giving you pain, our physiotherapists will help you get to the root of it. That way, we can provide a tailored treatment plan that addresses your exact condition and rehabilitation goals.
How Physiotherapy Can Help Address Knee Pain and Its Causes
Broadly speaking, there are three main ways of resolving knee pain: physiotherapy, medication, and surgery. Fortunately, most doctors will suggest physiotherapy as a front-line defense for knee pain or a recent injury. If it can’t resolve the condition–or if the injury is too severe for physiotherapy in the first place–your doctor may recommend surgery.
Either way, Newcastle Physiotherapy is here to help you find relief. While our physiotherapy services may help you avoid surgery in some cases, our post-surgical rehabilitation programs will help you fully rehabilitate if surgery is required. Your exact treatment plan will vary based on your exact needs, but for both non-surgical and post-surgical approaches, our therapists may utilize the following techniques:
- Manual Therapy: This hands-on approach to physiotherapy can help reduce pain and improve range of motion. We’ll often utilize them to prepare your body before more intense exercises.
- Therapeutic Exercises: Movement is crucial to joint health. We’ll develop a tailored exercise program that strengthens and stretches the muscles supporting the knee joint, helping to reduce pain over time.
- Assistive Devices: In some cases, you may need to utilize mobility aids, especially after a recent injury or in the weeks immediately following surgery. Our therapists will ensure you’re using them correctly and provide movement modifications until you recover.
- Balance Training: An unstable knee can lead to overall balance and stability issues. We’ll help you restore your balance to restore your independence and mobility.
- Return-to-Sport Schedules: Whether addressing knee pain or injury directly or rehabilitating after surgery, it’s important not to do too much too soon. Our physiotherapists will work with you to develop a return-to-sport schedule that allows you to safely ease back into your favorite activities.
What To Expect During Your Appointments
Your first appointment will consist of a comprehensive assessment to help us understand your symptoms and dig down to the root cause of your knee pain. We’ll look at your health history and perform movement tests to help us understand your strength, balance, mobility, and more.
If you visit us for post-surgical rehabilitation, we’ll also coordinate with your healthcare team to ensure all your needs are properly addressed.
Once we fully understand your knee pain situation, we’ll develop a customized treatment plan based on your symptoms, conditions, and activity tolerance. We’ll start slowly, focusing on pain management, swelling control, and gentle mobility work, then gradually build intensity. Over time, we’ll incorporate more targeted strengthening exercises and progressive workouts.
Schedule Your Consultation Today!
Don’t let knee pain hold you back from your favorite recreational activities! No matter what condition is causing your pain, Newcastle Physiotherapy can help you identify a cause and a potential solution.
To get started, schedule an appointment with us today!
