The knee joint will react to forces imposed on it as it transfers forces between the ankle and foot to the hip, pelvis and the spine. If the knee is forced to move in a fashion it is not meant to move, by adjacent structures, it will ultimately become painful. This pain is a warning sign, not something to be covered up with drugs. Simply managing the pain will allow the patient to bear the pain while the joint degenerates and eventually fails.

While knee pain can be caused by improper movement in the knee, it can also be caused by improper movement in the ankle, hip, pelvis and spine. Consider the alignment of the front end of your car from the steering wheel to where “the rubber meets the road" – it is all interconnected. The ankle, knee, hip, pelvis and spine make up a closed kinematic chain. For instance, if there is faulty movement, what a chiropractor calls a subluxation, around the navicular bone of your foot, there will be inhibition of the medial (inside of the leg) and lateral (outside of the leg) muscles of your lower leg. This will influence the way you plant your foot when you walk. In turn this may cause stress to the knee joint so that there is more lateral and medial angulation of the knee than it was designed to handle. If left untreated, eventually arthritic changes (osteoarthritis) can occur resulting in the need for a knee replacement.

The road to knee replacement may start with over-the-counter medications or cortisone injections to manage the pain of degeneration. This may be followed by surgery that cuts out degenerated portions of a meniscus, a major stabilizer of the knee. The need for this procedure almost guarantees that joint replacement may be necessary when the patient reaches a "bone on bone" state. Preventative chiropractic analysis and correction of subluxation of the spine and extremities may eliminate the need for surgery.

If there is a fault in the movement of a joint (subluxation) the incorrect movement sends an aberrant signal to the area of the brain coordinating all movement. This aberrant signal then causes the brain to signal uncoordinated movements of the muscles and soft tissue around the joint. Since the knee joint is part of the closed kinematic chain, joints above and below that joint are affected as well as the subluxated joint. This uncoordinated movement causes excessive wear and tear on all joints involved in the closed kinematic chain. Excessive wear and tear causes osteoarthritis as well as destruction of the cartilage in the joint.

The chiropractic approach involves correcting the distortions wherever they exist, in the knee, ankle, hip or spine, to relieve the knee pain and bring all the joints back into alignment. A chiropractic adjustment can help correct the issue and eliminate the need to mask the pain with over-the-counter medications.

For more information, call Nicolai L Hansen, BS, DC at 321-247-0445 or visit NLHansenDC.com. His office is located in Rockledge.