Our knees often bear the brunt of our daily activity — as a result, knee pain is a common problem that leads to a variety of issues such as limited mobility, joint weakness, and other biomechanical dysfunction. Chronic knee pain is also responsible for many compensatory, or less-than-ideal, movement patterns we fall into when knees are under stress. 

It’s common for people of all ages and activity levels to experience some form of knee pain. The sources for this pain vary — from acute injuries like fractures, dislocations, or ligament tears to chronic issues like arthritis. By understanding the causes for knee pain and how physical therapy can help you recover and prevent the various kinds of knee pain, you’ll be on your way to a healthier, more functional knee, while building the foundation for healthier movement holistically.

Common Causes of Knee Pain

The knee joint’s size alone often means general wear and tear are the most common causes of knee pain. As knees age, the cartilage, ligaments, muscles, and tissues that support the joint can gradually weaken leading to unhealthy patterns of movement. Chronic inflammatory conditions like osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis can also contribute to accelerated wear and tear on knees. Because arthritis and other inflammatory diseases adversely impact joints, the knee joint is a common site of complaint. 

Second to wear and arthritis-related complaints, sport-related injuries can adversely affect knee joints. Tears in the ligaments, the meniscus in particular, from activities like basketball, running, tennis and others can create long-term pain that limits mobility, activity, and otherwise restricts quality of life. Other common knee issues that can be significantly improved with physical therapy include: 

• Patellar tendonitis
• Knee Bursitis
• IT Band issues
• ACL and other ligament tears

How Physical Therapy Can Help With Knee Pain

Some of the best strategies for protecting your knees and preventing knee pain start with strengthening the muscles and tendons that support the knee. Physical therapies also focus on ensuring the knee is able to perform a healthy range of motion, and that functional movement is supported by strength exercises and stretches to retrain the body in a healthier, functional movement pattern. 

Physical therapy can help with knee pain by evaluating the causes of pain, and creating a customized treatment plan for the patient based on their needs, goals, and activity levels. This could involve treatments like knee joint mobilizations, neuromuscular reeducation, therapeutic exercise, and stretches such as: 

• Heel and calf stretches
• Hamstring and quad stretches
• Leg extensions
• Side leg raises

How Long Does it Take to Get Knee Pain Relief with Physical Therapy?

The time it takes to get knee pain relief with physical therapy varies according to the longevity and severity of the injury or issue, though a typical treatment duration is between 4 and 8 weeks. 

For many patients with tendonitis-related pain, an average of 6 weeks of treatment is a baseline before improvements may be seen. For many ligament-related injuries, the timeline may be longer — often up to 12 weeks — depending on the appropriate rehabilitation required before affected tissues can return to normal activity. 

The frequency of treatment also impacts the overall length of time you can expect treatment to take. For some patients, treatments in the clinic twice per week can accelerate results, while for other patients it may not be advisable to pursue treatment more than once per week.

How SIMIO Physical Therapy Can Help

Whatever type of knee injury or pain you’re experiencing, our licensed physical therapists can help. We’ll look at your whole body as a system to uncover imbalances, excessive muscle tone, restriction, or altered movement patterns to help put you on the road to a healthier pattern of movement and thus a healthier knee. This process of building healthier patterns of movement  reduces the likelihood of future re-injury or strain. Set up a free knee pain consultation with one of our physical therapists to learn more.