A sprain or strain is an injury of the ligaments stretching or twisting, accompanied by hematoma and inflammation and pain that prevents to continue moving the injured knee. Originated to be affected by mechanical action (the requirement of a sudden movement, or unnatural movement), or violence (fall, hit). Do not confuse with the dislocation, which is a more severe injury that involves changing the position of the joint and the separation of their bones. Or with the tear, which is injury to muscle tissue.
Before going into details, two important points:
- The rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament is not operated in the acute phase. A six-week period is generally respected even if the patient is in a hurry to solve the problem: the best surgical results are achieved when the intervention takes place in a painless and mobile knee.
- The broken ligament is not the cause of his pain or his eventual lameness. What bothers, is the loss of the general function of your knee as a result of your sprain, swelling and loss of strength in the quadriceps due to the increase in volume and the initial pain.
After sprain
- Often, in an emergency situation, the emergency doctor will immobilize your knee slight flexion with a splint and often two crutches.
- Most of the time, this splint is used only the first days of the emergency.
- It is therefore very important that go with us for evaluation to verify that no longer need immobilization, reset your treatment, allowing you to quickly reach an effective rehabilitation and therefore avoid the rigidity associated with prolonged immobilization. You must perform additional x-rays and a magnetic resonance (can call my assistant so I sent him the order)
- The resonance and the physical examination are very important, not only to verify the status of his cruciate ligament and the meniscus, but also the absence of associated injuries, as a partial rupture of the internal ligament (common but not serious), which in turn requires the use of a hinged brace, not lock the knee for six weeks or the participation of (more serious ligament(, but fortunately much rarer) that require rapid treatment.
- The objective is to try to get a normal life is to say, get a knee hope, painless or almost, with appropriate mobility (extension to 0 ° and 120 ° of flexion) and a March to a normal everyday life (back to work).
- During the consultation, you showed how to regain control of the knee. After regaining a normal life and some momentum it's time go to a physical therapist to try his knee ligament in the work plan for their support, try knee, the role of the physical therapist is crucial, since it will be difficult to do exercises alone imply its stability after the sprain. He (she) can say the exercises and help "overcome" their concern, very natural. Physiotherapy must remain pain-free: If your feeling pain or if swollen knee, is better to take a break, to treat the pain and swelling (ice formation, drugs) before resuming the session. It has sense to call your doctor or surgeon to keep you informed about the difficulties without waiting for the next visit.
Figure 1. Shows the four possible injury ligament (meniscus injury excluded) that can occur during a knee sprain (can occur alone or combined)
