Why does my child's knee hurt?

For knee pain in adults, we can conduct an examination to determine whether there is a problem with rheumatoid arthritis. However, if a child has knee pain, it will make parents particularly worried, not knowing what the problem is. At this time, an examination is also needed. In addition, the symptoms of children will be more obvious and need more attention, and then combined with methods to relieve the pain.

reason

Patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS) is a common disease, especially in athletes and women. The cause of the disease is not yet clear, but it is closely related to abnormal alignment of the patella.

The cause of PFSP is still unclear, but there are two possible explanations.

(1) The patella deviates from the trochlear groove, causing the patella to be off track, resulting in anterior knee pain.

(2) The synovium around the patella is richly innervated by nerves and may be stimulated by chemicals or pressure. Once inflamed, it will cause symptoms during activities.

Mitigation methods

1. Rest:

This is the simplest one. Excessive weight bearing on the patellofemoral joint is the biggest cause of pain. If you don't use it, there will be no such problem. When it really hurts, resting can relieve most of the pain! But this will also cause the lower limb muscles to atrophy easily.

2. Assistive devices:

The most common aids currently are

(1) Knee orthosis

(2) Taping mainly involves two aspects, the main function of which is to provide external support and guide the patella to slide correctly in the correct position. But if the problem is caused by problems with the arch of the foot, you should consider custom-made medical insoles.

3. Exercise:

(a) Strength training

Usually the most common symptom of this syndrome is atrophy of the quadriceps. The quadriceps is the muscle that works when the knee is straightened, so the focus is to strengthen the strength of knee straightening. However, training is not just about kicking with sandbags tied to your feet. Professional advice is to train between full extension and 45-degree bending of the knee joint. From a mechanical point of view, knee bending in the range of 0-45 degrees puts less pressure on the patellofemoral joint and trains the part of the quadriceps that needs training most.

But on the other hand, since the stability of the knee joint is shared by all the muscles around the knee joint, it is more important to strengthen the overall muscle strength of the lower limbs to share the pressure. Professional physical therapists recommend that such patients can swim as their main exercise. On the one hand, it can train the strength of the lower limbs, on the other hand, it will not put too much pressure on the knee joint, and can also maintain stable physical fitness. If you don't want to go into the water, riding a bicycle is also a good choice.

(b) Stretching exercises

In addition, there are some muscles that are more prone to tightening, such as the iliac tendon muscles at the back of the thigh, the soleus muscles at the back of the calf, and the external rotator muscles of the hip joint. When they are too tight, it will cause the arch of the foot to be flatter and the knee to be bent, which will affect the stress on the patellar cartilage and cause pain. Therefore, these tight muscles need to be loosened.