The knee is the largest joint in the body, and unfortunately, one of the most easily injured. It's made up of four main structures: bones, cartilage, ligaments, and tendons.
The most common knee injuries include fractures around the knee, dislocation, and sprains and tears of soft tissues, like ligaments. In many cases, injuries involve more than one structure in the knee. Signs of knee injury include pain, swelling or instability – the feeling that your knee is giving way. The knee may also "catch" or lock up.
Knee pain is a common symptom in people of all ages. It may start suddenly, often after an injury or exercise, or begin as mild discomfort that slowly worsens. Being overweight puts you at greater risk for knee problems. Other risk factors include overuse of the knee and osteoarthritis.
For mild knee pain, the RICE method – rest, ice, gentle compression and elevation – can help speed your recovery.
When to Contact a Medical Professional
Call your health care provider if:
- You can't bear weight on your knee.
- You have severe pain, even when not bearing weight.
- Your knee buckles, clicks, or locks.
- Your knee appears deformed or misshapen.
- You have a fever, redness or warmth around the knee.
- Significant swelling.
- Persistent pain after 3 days of home treatment.
Treatment depends on the severity of your injury and your age, general health, and activity level.
Nonsurgical Treatment for Knee Pain
Many knee injuries can be treated with simple measures, such as:
- Immobilization. Your doctor may recommend a brace to prevent your knee from moving. If you have fractured a bone, a cast or brace may hold the bones in place while they heal. To further protect your knee, you may be given crutches to keep you from putting weight on your leg.
- Physical therapy. Specific exercises help restore function to the knee and strengthen the leg muscles that support it.
- Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medicines (NSAIDs). Drugs like aspirin and ibuprofen reduce pain and swelling.
Surgical Treatments for Knee Pain
Orthopedic surgeons at Ingalls treat knees, hips, shoulders, ankles, feet and hands with some of the latest technology available anywhere, including computer-assisted navigation to place new joints with pinpoint accuracy. That means less pain, a faster recovery and better range of motion for you.
Knee arthroscopy is surgery that uses a tiny camera to look inside your knee. Small cuts are made to insert the camera and small surgical tools into your knee for the procedure.
Arthroscopy may be recommended for the following knee problems:
- Torn meniscus. (Meniscus is cartilage that cushions the space between the bones in the knee.) Surgery is done to repair or remove it.
- Torn or damaged anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) or posterior cruciate ligament (PCL).
- Torn or damaged collateral ligament.
- Swollen or damaged lining of the knee joint.
- Kneecap (patella) that is out of position or misaligned.
- Small pieces of broken cartilage in the knee joint.
- Removal of Baker's cyst, a fluid-filled swelling behind the knee.
- Cartilage repair.
Knee Replacement Surgery
If your knee is severely damaged by arthritis or injury, it may be hard to perform simple activities, like walking or climbing stairs. You may even begin to feel pain while you are sitting or lying down. If nonsurgical treatments like medications and using walking supports are no longer helpful, you may want to consider knee replacement surgery, a safe, effective procedure to relieve pain, correct leg deformity, and help you resume normal activities. More than 600,000 knee replacements are performed in the United States each year, and improvements in surgical techniques and materials have increased its effectiveness since it was first introduced in the late 1960s.
- Partial Knee Replacement. Osteoarthritis may affect all three sections of your knee—the femur (thigh bone), tibia (shin bone) and patella (knee cap). However, it may only affect one or two of these, in which case you may be an appropriate candidate for a partial knee replacement, in which only the damaged section of the knee is replaced. A minimally invasive alternative to total knee replacement, the partial knee involves fewer mechanical parts – leaving more natural knee in place.
- Custom Fit Visionaire Knee Replacement. Every person's knee joint has subtle differences in shape and contour, but traditional surgical instruments used to place knee implants typically are one-size-fits-all. Visionaire technology uses MRI and X-ray images of a patient's knee to design and build surgical instruments that are customized for a patient's unique knee anatomy. During traditional knee replacement surgery, the surgeon spends time adapting the patient's knee to fit the new implant. But with Visionaire, the surgeon comes to the operating room with surgical instruments engineered exclusively for the patient's knee and an implant that matches the knee's dimensions. With computer-guided precision, the knee implant is then carefully put in place. Benefits of the new knee system include less pain, a quicker recovery and a longer-lasting implant. And, because Visionaire delivers pre-sized, pre-aligned instruments, surgery time is shortened, reducing a patient's time under anesthesia.
Cartilage Restoration and Repair. Articular cartilage is the smooth, white tissue that covers the ends of bones where they come together to form joints. Healthy cartilage in our joints makes it easier to move. It allows the bones to glide over each other with very little friction. Articular cartilage can be damaged by injury or normal wear and tear. Because cartilage does not heal itself well, doctors have developed surgical techniques to stimulate the growth of new cartilage. Restoring articular cartilage can relieve pain and allow better function. Most importantly, it can delay or prevent the onset of arthritis. At the Advanced Orthopedic Institute at Ingalls, experts now offer several revolutionary new procedures to repair or restore damaged cartilage without the need for joint replacement surgery, including Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation, or ACI. ACI is a two-step procedure. New cartilage cells are grown and then implanted in the cartilage defect. First, healthy cartilage tissue is removed from a non-weight-bearing area of the bone. This step is done as an arthroscopic procedure. The tissue that contains healthy cartilage cells, or chondrocytes, is then sent to the laboratory. The cells are cultured and increase in number over a 3- to 5-week period. An open surgical procedure, or arthrotomy, is then done to implant the newly grown cells. The cartilage defect is prepared. A layer of bone-lining tissue, called periosteum, is sewn over the area. This cover is sealed with fibrin glue. The newly grown cells are then injected into the defect under the periosteal cover. ACI is most useful for younger patients who have single defects larger than 2 cm in diameter. ACI has the advantage of using the patient's own cells, so there is no danger of a patient rejecting the tissue.