Heal Your Knees: How to Prevent
Knee Surgery – and What to Do If You Need It
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by Robert Klapper, M.D. and Lynda Huey
Don't let knee pain ruin your life. Learn how your knee functions, what happens when it doesn't, and how to do self-diagnostic tests. Follow the pool and land workouts that guide you through each step so you can banish knee pain. Land physical therapy exercises provided by Tanya Moran-Dougherty, MPT. (M. Evans, 2004)
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Help your knees for the rest of your life!
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Lynda Huey
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Robert Klapper, M.D.
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The authors treat more than ten thousand patients each year, so after more than a decade's collaboration, they've gained a lot of information to share with you. Heal Your Knees is written in a colloquial style that will give you the feeling that you've had an office visit with Dr. Klapper, a sessionin the pool with Lynda Huey, and a land visit with contributor Tanya Moran-Dougherty, MPT.
We've learned so much talking to our patients, learning how to teach them, and finding the right analogy to demystify the difficult and scary parts of the healing process. Our goal is to empower you in making good choices and take you to the next level of layperson's expertise. After reading our book, you'll be able to ask better, more precise questions.
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Contributor
Tanya Moran-
Dougherty, MPT
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For those with health maintenance organizations (HMOs), this can prove invaluable since you'll often see a primary care doctor who lacks specific orthopedic knowledge. If you ask, "is my meniscus tear in the red-red zone?" and your doctor doesn't know what you're talking about, you'll know you need to insist on seeing an orthopedist. You'll be able to say, "Yes, I do need an MRI. My knee has been hurting for a month and I've been taught that the standard of care is to get an MRI at this point in my treatment." Once you know what the standard of care is for various conditions, you'll be a better advocate for your own knees.
Chapter Summary
1. Ten Minutes in Water, Ten Minutes on Land. Brief pool and land exercise programs to introduce you to the exercises that will help you heal your knees.
2. Fit Knees. The anatomy of your knee, the most complicated joint in the body.
3. Unfit Knees. What can go wrong with knees? How can you perform a self-test to see if you have a torn meniscus? What are the many kinds of meniscus tears? What is tendinitis and what causes it? Which ligaments should be surgically repaired if torn and which shouldn't? How does a patella tracking problem contribute the breakdown of your cartilage? What is osteoarthritis and posttraumatic arthritis? What about bursitis, cysts, fractures, spurs, contractures, and adhesions?
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Sample Charts
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Click on charts to enlarge.
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4. Stop Hurting Your Knees. Which are the most abusive and the most nurturing forms of exercise? Are you aggravating your knee condition with too much of the wrong exercise? Given your knee's condition, your age, and your fitness level, how much activity can you safely do without further damaging your knees? A chart calculates how many "knee points" you're allowed each week, then an activities scale helps you devise a safe fitness regimen from your various activities.
5. Reaching a Diagnosis: Doing Your Part. A written physical history form and a home self-examination helps you gather all the pertinent facts to tell your doctor. Learn the components of a thorough knee exam so you'll know if your doctor skipped over anything important.
6. MRIs, X rays, and CT Scans. Learn what each can help locate in an effort to reach a diagnosis for your knee.
7. The Right Treatment: Doing Your Part. Ten suggestions for treatments you can do right now depending on your symptoms, philosophy, and inclination. These vary from ice, exercise, diet, and herbal remedies to physical therapy, massage, acupuncture, chiropractic, yoga, and Pilates.
8. Designing Your Own Program. Physical therapist Tanya Moran-Dougherty, MPT offers guidance along with Lynda Huey on how to begin pool and land exercises and how to progress toward your goals in order to prevent surgery.
9. Before You Return to the Pool. The equipment you may decide you need as your gain strength and flexibility. What to consider if you build your own pool.
10. A Pool Exercise Program for Knees. Lynda Huey's successful pool therapy program-thirty-four exercises with all their variations.
11. A Land Exercise Program for Knees. CompletePT Pool & Land Physical Therapy's land therapy program as compiled by its Clinical Director, Tanya Moran-Dougherty, MPT. Twenty-five exercises using minimal equipment.
12. Knee Surgery. We hope you'll not have to read this chapter. Yet if the structural damage to your knee is too great to overcome with exercise, you may need to take advantage of one of today's new surgical solutions. If you've tried the pool and land exercises for several months with no improvement to your knee's condition, you may be ready to have guilt-free surgery. Dr. Klapper offers insights from four case studies in his surgical practice: meniscus, tibial plateau fracture, anterior crucial ligament reconstruction, knee implant.
13. In and Out of the Hospital. Surgical patients have told us that this was the most invaluable chapter of our previous book, Heal Your Hips. Thus we offer it again, this time revised for knee patients of various surgical conditions.
14. After Surgery. Your recovery will be quicker if did both the pool and land exercises prior to surgery, but even if you didn't, we'll lead you by the hand back to mobility following meniscus, anterior cruciate ligament, and knee implant surgery. Each of these surgeries requires different precautions and emphases. Tanya Moran-Dougherty, MPT and Lynda Huey guide you through the danger zones and motivate you to regain full strength and mobility in your postsurgical knee.
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