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With fast moving life everyone wants to engage in some recreational sports or other to keep one-self fit. This with a health-conscious generation increasing in the present times has increased the number of people presenting in the hospital with sports injuries. Most of these injuries are preventable if a little stress is paid to simple dos and don’ts.
Preconditioning is important before you start any sport or even a simple activity like running. This involves strengthening programs targeting injury prevention and enabling you to perform as well as keep you away from injury.
Most people who are busy working the whole week and do recreational sports on a weekend are hence called weekend athletes. This category of people are prone to injuries with an unconditioned knee, subjecting one-self to micro injuries or even frank injuries. For example, if you are called by your friend for a badminton match, which sounds very interesting as a sport, you might play the match but later worry that your knee has swollen up and you find it difficult to walk the stairs of your office, which till yesterday you were running up and down. What happened after a single game of badminton?
These days, more and more people are turning towards running as a fitness sport. Running with proper training helps achieve marathon after marathon, but people who start running later in life and get hooked to it should seek early advice if symptomatic. This group is more prone to knee injuries, especially meniscus injuries.
Menisci are soft fibrocartilaginous structures in the knee joint, which decrease the pressure over the cartilage covering the joint surfaces during all weight-bearing activities. Any turning or twisting injury can cause a tear of this important structure of the knee. Meniscus injuries are also commonly seen along with other major ligament injuries like the ACL and PCL injuries.
It is now clearly understood that the meniscus prevents damage to the cartilage, hence decreasing the onset of degenerative arthritis of the knee. Arthritis occurs due to loss of the cartilage covering the knee.
Meniscus surgery has taken a fresh turn towards saving as much meniscus as possible, supported by evidence from around the world. Latest arthroscopic techniques help stitch the torn meniscus wherever possible to prevent damage to the joint.
Meniscus injuries are common and can affect the careers of sportspeople. The general dictum is that individuals who are well trained in preventing injuries get less injured compared to others. Many injury prevention programs can be adapted into daily fitness regimens. Well-known programs like FIFA five have helped footballers in injury prevention.
A constant nagging pain felt either on the inside or outside of the knee, especially during walking or jumping activities. Sometimes the pain starts with a click or pop felt in the knee during sudden turning or twisting. This might later result in a locking episode where the person cannot flex or extend the knee, causing excruciating pain. This is a semi-emergency requiring specialist attention. Locking episodes are caused by a bucket handle tear of the C-shaped meniscus, where the handle of the imaginary bucket gets stuck in between the knee joint, causing true locking. Most of these bucket handle tears are repairable if consulted early.
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