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Having knee pain? The cause may be in your hips
One of the more common injuries we see with young athletes, most notably female athletes, is anterior knee pain, or what is also known as runner’s knee or patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS).
PFPS is an irritation on the undersurface of the knee cap. Most people with this condition will complain of pain along the inside or outside of the kneecap or directly below the kneecap. These symptoms are more commonly brought on with running and jumping (sports) or squatting, walking down stairs and prolonged sitting.
So what causes PFPS? Even though pain is felt at the knee, the knee is not usually the culprit. One of the most common causes is weakness in certain muscles of the hip. These particular muscles control the mechanics of the knee, and with weakness, they cause the femur (or upper leg bone) to internally rotate and adduct (knee goes inward) causing the kneecap to track outside of its normal groove. This will cause much irritation and stress to this joint.
Functional weakness in these hip muscles can also lead to more serious injuries in sports, such as tearing your ACL. This devastating injury, along with other serious knee injuries, can be the result of poor knee mechanics during landing or cutting. Again, these faulty knee mechanics are the direct result from weakness in the lateral hip muscles which can easily be diagnosed and treated by your athletic trainer or physical therapist.
Full story of knee pain and the hips at the Journal Star
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‘Oil for the Joints’ Offers Hope for Osteoarthritis Sufferers
A team of researchers led by a Boston University Biomedical Engineer has developed a new joint lubricant that could bring longer lasting relief to millions of osteoarthritis sufferers. The new synthetic polymer supplements synovial fluid, the natural lubricant in joints, and works better than comparable treatments currently available.
According to Professor Mark W. Grinstaff (BME, MSE, Chemistry), the best fluid supplement now available offers temporary symptom relief but provides inadequate lubrication to prevent further degradation of the cartilage surfaces that cushion the joint. To achieve both objectives, Grinstaff, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School orthopedic surgeon Brian Snyder and a team of Boston University chemistry and engineering students, fellows and clinicians have advanced the first synthetic synovial fluid. They describe the unique polymer and its performance in Journal of the American Chemical Society.
The most common form of joint disease and a leading cause of disability in the elderly, osteoarthritis (OA) affects about 27 million Americans and 200 million people worldwide. Characterized by pain and swelling, the disease emerges in hand, hip, knee and other commonly used joints where degradation of cartilage and synovial fluid results in bone-on-bone abrasion. Treatments range from anti-inflammatory drugs to total joint replacement. While there's no cure for OA, one treatment -- injection of a polymer to supplement synovial fluid in the joint -- promises to relieve symptoms and slow the disease's progression by reducing wear on cartilage surfaces.
Full story of oil for the joints at Science Daily
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STRENGTHENING TORSO MUSCLES HELPS WARD OFF KNEE PAIN
Many children can be affected by knee problems that are related to growth. A classic example is Osgood-Schlatter, which affects approximately 20 percent of young athletes. Osgood-Schlatter is pain related to tight muscles pulling apart one of the growing centers of the top-front aspect of the leg bone. But, not every knee pain in a young growing athlete can be pinpointed to a specific cause like Osgood-Schlatter; and often the athletes are done growing but still have pain on the front of their knee.
The pain can, of course, be caused by a traumatic experience — an injury on the field, a collision with another athlete — but, often the pain cannot be traced back to an injury. In the young athlete, this type of pain is often a repercussion of growing.
Growth primarily involves the bones. As the bones get longer, the muscles get tight and need to stretch out to accommodate the new leg length. Furthermore, with puberty comes a shift in the strength of muscle and the overall mass of the athlete. Basically, all these factors can result in a detrimental shift in the mechanics of the legs and the knee. This, then, results in knee pain.
Full story of torso and knee pain at UT San Diego
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Coplon: Weight loss opens door to new knees
Chuck Young’s knees had been deteriorating for years. By the time he went in for a surgery consult in March of 2012, Young had no cartilage left in either knee. Bone on bone. They had to be replaced.
As Young’s primary care physician, we already had been talking about his knees. We’d also been talking about his weight and how it might be a problem for the surgery. So when Young sat down with Dr. Greg Koski, his Kaiser Permanente orthopedic surgeon, the 62-year-old received some harsh (but not surprising) news.
“He said he wouldn’t operate on my knees unless I lost weight,” Young said. “He said I needed to lose at least 40 pounds.”
Young, a Medicaid systems analyst for the Department of Human Services, had watched his weight creep up to 338 pounds in the two years since a mysterious blood disorder and a pair of surgeries for carpal tunnel syndrome had kept him off his bicycle. Young had once weighed 220 pounds and was an active cyclist with the Salem Bike Club who rode to and from work. Now his obesity was standing in the way of him getting the new knees he needed to stay active and enjoy his upcoming retirement.
Full story of weight loss and knees at Statesman Journal
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FLEX CEUs: New Courses for March
NEW: OT CategoryFYI, we now have a new OT category on the website to make it easier for OT's to find what they're looking for. Check it out at Flex CEUs OT CEUs. Now on to the new courses!
NEW: Knee Pain - Total Knee Arthroplasty
$18.00 [2.00 CE Hours]
Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) results in pain reduction and improved function for many patients; although, individuals are often left with muscular impairments that fail to completely resolve even years after surgery. The role of quadriceps weakness is stressed in this course due to the association to normal functional activities; however, hamstring strength deficits have also been reported after TKA surgery. Preoperative and postoperative interventions are reviewed, including a comparison of therapeutic exercise approaches. Finally, clinical guidelines and recommendations based on current available evidence are described.
NEW: Frozen Shoulder/Adhesive Capsulitis - Classification & Treatment Considerations
$45.00 [5.00 CE Hours]
Frozen shoulder, or adhesive capsulitis, describes the common shoulder condition characterized by painful and limited active and passive range of motion. This course will give an overview of the different classifications of frozen shoulder as well as the etiology, pathology, examination, and plan of care. The second portion of the course compares the effectiveness of anterior versus posterior glide mobilization techniques for improving shoulder external rotation range of motion in this patient population.
Full information on new courses and many others at FLEX CEUs
When life is just a pain
After being diagnosed with fibromyalgia two years ago, a mother-of-two has learned to live with the pain
You know when you have a bad flu and you wake up in the morning feeling stiff and achy? I feel like that every morning. I get up feeling like I haven’t slept at all even though I have usually had a good night’s sleep.
This time about two years ago, I started to get severe back pain. I couldn’t attribute it to anything like lifting something heavy or a fall, it just came out of nowhere.
My GP sent me to a rheumatologist who gave me epidural injections to ease the back pain but they did not help and the pain started to spread around my body into my arms and hands, my hips and legs.
I was brought into hospital and diagnosed with fibromyalgia in February 2010. Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition (which means I will have to live with it for the rest of my life) which affects all the muscles in my body and causes chronic pain and fatigue. The list of symptoms is endless, but they are the worst two for me.
Full story of life and pain at Irish Times
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Vitamin D claims for knee osteoarthritis questioned
The benefit of taking vitamin D supplements for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis(OA) has been challenged in a study published in JAMA.
The 2-year randomized trial shows no improvement in knee pain severity or cartilage volume loss in patients given oral cholecalciferol 2000 IU/day, with dose escalation to achieve a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin 25(OH) D level of 36 ng/mL, and those given placebo.
This level of vitamin D supplementation was chosen after being reported in epidemiologic studies to slow knee OA progression, explain Timothy McAlindon (Tufts Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts, USA) and co-authors.
The trial enrolled 146 patients, aged an average of 62.4 years, with symptomatic knee OA between 2006 and 2009, and 85% of participants completed the study.
Patients taking supplements increased their 25(OH)D levels by an average of 16.1 ng/mL, compared with a 2.1-mg/mL increase in controls over the study. The target of 36 ng/mL was achieved by 61.3% of patients given supplements compared with just 8.3% of controls.
Full story of Vitamin D and Osteoarthritis at News Medical
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Knee Pain Not the Reason for Inactivity
Exercise is good for just about everyone, especially those with knee osteoarthritis. It can reduce knee pain and boost the ability to move. Unfortunately, arthritis patients may not be getting enough exercise.
A recent study showed that patients with knee osteoarthritis may not be getting the recommended amount of exercise. However, people without knee arthritis do not appear to be getting enough exercise either, suggesting that pain may not be to blame for inactivity.
Overall, lower percentages of patients with knee osteoarthritis and knee pain met the recommended levels of physical activity, compared to those without knee arthritis and pain.
But the difference was not large.
Full story of knee pain and osteoarthritis at DailyRX
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Drug Slows Knee Osteoarthritis Progression
A drug used outside the U.S. to treat osteoporosis may not only lessen the everyday pain associated with knee osteoarthritis, but may even slow down the progression of osteoarthritis, researchers say.
The drug is called strontium ranelate.
In a three-year study of more than 1,300 people with knee osteoarthritis, digital X-rays revealed substantially less loss of cartilage in the joint space in those who took strontium ranelate every day compared with people who took a placebo daily.
In people with osteoarthritis, the cartilage in a joint wears away in some areas. The function of cartilage is to reduce friction in the joints and serve as a "shock absorber." The wearing away of cartilage leads to pain and other symptoms.
Nearly one in 100 people have evidence of knee osteoarthritis on an X-ray. And nearly 19% of women and 14% of men age 45 and older have joint pain, stiffness, and other symptoms of knee osteoarthritis, according to a large 2007 study.
Full story of knee osteoarthritis drug at WebMD
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Is exercise damaging your legs?
Know what can cause injuries
Don't let your feet hold you back when it comes to keeping fit, says podiatrist Lorraine Jones.
'There are a whole range of foot problems related to exercise. The commonest ones related to sports tend to be ones picked up in the gym changing rooms and are usually fungal, such as athlete’s foot and fungal infection of the toe nails. However there are also a lot of foot problems linked to exercise:
Pulled Hamstring
A pulled hamstring is a common sports injury, seen most commonly in sprinters. A pulled hamstring is an injury to one of the three hamstring muscles. Treatment of a pulled hamstring is important for a speedy recovery. The hamstrings bend the knee and move the thigh backwards at the hip. When you sprint, the hamstrings decelerate the tibia as it swings out, and it is in this phase of activity just before the foot contacts the ground when the hamstrings are nearing their maximum length that the muscles can become injured.
Full story of what damages legs at Yahoo Lifestyle
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