Knee injury

Cause and symptoms

If you have been unfortunate enough to twist, hit or otherwise injure your knee, various forms of tissue and cartilage damage can occur in the knee.

Some of the typical injuries to the knee are:

Ligament injury (Partially or completely torn cruciate ligament or torn/sprained collateral ligament)
Meniscus injury (One or more tears)

The most common symptoms of knee damage are reduced mobility (difficulty bending/extending the knee) and pain when putting weight on the leg. In addition, you may experience episodes where the knee "locks" in a movement and/or a feeling of an unstable leg, where the leg can spontaneously break under you.

If the symptoms continue unchanged for a longer period of time, you should contact your doctor for a recommendation for a course of treatment.

What you can do yourself

In the first few days of pain, you can try to relieve the pain and swelling by staying still and avoiding painful activities. You can cool the area around the knee with an ice pack under compression (e.g. with an elastic bandage). It is a good idea to raise the knee above heart level to help the blood return to the heart. Cooling the area should be done for periods of maximum 10 minutes.

It is important that you slowly start moving the knee. Adjust your activities so that activities that worsen the pain and have high stress on the knee are limited (e.g. running and jumping). Instead, you should find other activities with less stress on the knee so that you can stay physically active – this can be cycling, rowing or swimming/aqua aerobics.

Exercise

It is important that you stay active and start exercising. Exercise is effective in reducing pain and discomfort, as well as preventing new discomfort in the body.

The following exercises are inspiration for training to relieve pain and regain function. You can do all the exercises every day and on both legs (not just the leg where you are experiencing symptoms).

If you have the opportunity, you can warm up lightly on an exercise bike before starting the exercises. Start with low resistance and gradually increase the load as the pain allows.

Knee strength 1

Repetitions: 3x10 repetitions

How to do it: Sit on the edge of a chair. Let the foot slide back and forth on the floor. Extend and bend the knee as much as possible. Place any a dish cloth or similar under the foot so that it slides better.

Knee exercise

Repetitions: 3x10 repetitions

How to do it: Lie on your stomach on the floor with your training knee bent (90 degrees). The other leg is kept straight. Now lift the foot and lower leg towards the ceiling and slowly lower the leg back down.

Knee extension

Repetitions: 3x10 repetitions

How to do it: Sit on the floor with your legs extended. Place a rolled up towel or a small ball under the knee of the training leg. Press the knee down towards the floor by tensing the thigh muscle. Hold the tension for a few seconds and slowly release again.

Chair Squat

Repetitions: 3x10 repetitions

How to do it: Sit on the outer edge of the chair with your feet on the floor and feet hip-width apart. Now stand up with the weight evenly distributed on both legs and slowly sit down again. Make sure to keep your back straight when you travel and sit down easily on the chair.