How To Rehab A Torn Meniscus Video

Rehabbing a torn meniscus must be done with care and proper direction. Receive tips for treatment of a torn meniscus in this video on health and rehab.

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Stretch hamstrings
May require surgery
Alleviate pressure
Restore quad function

About this Author

Russ Paine is a well-known physical therapist with the Roger Clemens Institute at Memorial Hospital. After getting his degree in physical therapy from Texas Women's University, he trained for several years under David Drez, MD, a renowned surgeon and sports medicine specialist. He has been a rehab consultant for the Houston Rockets, Houston Astros and NASA. He has given hundreds of presentations in his career in the US and abroad, and has published many chapters in text books and papers in peer review journals.

RUSS PAINE: Today, we're talking about a torn meniscus and how to rehab it. The meniscus is probably one of the most frequently injured anatomical landmarks of the knee. And you can see in this knee model, you're looking at the front of the knee. Here's the medial collateral ligament; here's the medial meniscus and the lateral meniscus. So typically, a meniscus injury occurs when you have a twisting motion in the knee. And the meniscus has good blood supply on the outside but not so good blood supply towards the center of the meniscus, so tears that occur on the outside of the meniscus tend to heal. Those on the inside of the meniscus don't heal as well. And typically, when you have a meniscus injury, you can have kind of two types of meniscus injuries. An acute injury where the meniscus tear actually flips inside your joint and when you straighten your knee out it locks and catches and it really hurts a lot. Or you can have a degenerative tear, one that occurs over time. And pain location for a meniscus injury is right on the inside of your joint or on the outside of your joint. So to rehabilitate this injury if you're--obviously, if your knee is locked, you're going to have surgery. But if you have a degenerative meniscus, we want to make sure we have really good hamstring flexibility. Okay? So we're going to do a lot of hamstring stretching. Because on the lateral meniscus, the lateral hamstring is actually attached--I'm sorry.

How to Rehab a Torn Meniscus Video

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