Knee Pain

Understanding your problem

As with other specific conditions that can be addressed with manual therapy, it is important to first understand the history of your knee pain before a diagnosis can be made. This involves asking you: to describe your symptoms; when and how your symptoms started; which activities provoke pain or dysfunction and so on.

This history guides me in making an appropriate physical examination of the joint that might include observing you in standing and while bending the affected knee as well as palpation of the area and the use of special tests of the joint to confirm a diagnosis.

Common knee problems I treat include

• Patellofemoral pain syndrome
• Patellar tendinopathy
• Hamstring tendinopathy
• Iliotibial band syndrome
• Bursitis

Treatment

Treatment consists of applying appropriate manual therapy techniques such as soft tissue massage, joint mobilisation and stretches to the relevant tissues. Sometimes this means a focus on the area of pain and sometimes this means relieving surrounding tissue that may have become painful or restricted either because of adaptations you have made to accommodate your knee problem or issues that are affecting the knee directly. Indeed, for many of the chronic knee conditions listed above which develop over time there is often a relationship between your knee pain and pain / dysfunction at the hip or ankle.

During the treatment we can discuss if a graded exercise programme is appropriate for you and if so I can take you through the relevant exercises after the manual therapy treatment.