Exercises from physiotherapy for meniscus tears

To treat the torn meniscus, relieve pain and stabilize the knee, there are a number of stretching, strengthening and stabilizing exercises that can be performed easily and comfortably at home. Which exercises are best suited to your situation should be discussed with your doctor or therapist beforehand.

Exercises

1) Stabilizing the standing leg Stand straight and upright on one leg. The other leg is in the air. Keep the balance for 15 seconds, then change legs.

To make the exercise more difficult, you can close your eyes during the exercise or stand on a shaky surface (e.g. a cushion). 2) Knee bends to strengthen the muscles Stand straight and upright. The legs are slightly shoulder-wide apart.

Now go into the squat. Make sure that your knees do not extend beyond the tips of your toes. With your back straight, stretch your buttocks backwards.

15 repetitions. 3) Stabilizing the knee joint Stand straight and upright on a smooth surface (tiles, parquet). Place a towel under the healthy foot.

Now push the towel slowly and in a controlled manner backwards with your foot, keeping your weight on the supporting leg. 10 repetitions. 4) Strengthening the muscles Sit up straight and upright on a chair.

Clamp a book between your ankles. Now lift your legs straight forward. When you have reached the maximum extension, lower your legs again.

15 repetitions. 5) Improving the extension Lie on your back. Place a towel roll under the damaged knee and adjust the healthy leg.

Now pull your toes up and press your knee into the towel roll as if you wanted to bring the back of your knee to the floor. Hold the tension for 10 seconds, then return to the starting position. 5 repetitions. More exercises can be found under: Exercises for a meniscus lesion

Conservative treatment – Physiotherapy

A conservative, i.e. non-surgical treatment of a meniscus rupture is especially useful if it is only a small tear in the better perfused area of the meniscus. How successful and fast a conservative treatment progresses depends on whether there are already previous damages and what extent the injury has. First of all, the pain medication and, if necessary, the injection of anti-inflammatory substances are in the foreground in order to provide relief to the patient.

It is also very important to protect and cool the affected knee. An essential part of conservative therapy is then physiotherapy, which should also be started as soon as possible after the injury has been diagnosed. At the beginning of the physiotherapy, the patient works passively in the knee, because in the first 3-4 weeks after the injury it is important not to put full weight on the knee and not to perform any twisting or bumping movements.

The treating therapist moves the knee during this type of physiotherapy without the help of the patient. In addition, pain-relieving methods such as cold therapy or electrotherapy can be used. As soon as the patient is allowed to put weight on the knee again, the active therapy is started.

Here, a patient-specific training plan is drawn up, whereby the focus is on restoring the mobility of the knee joint. This goal is to be achieved by performing stretching, muscle building and balance exercises. If the patient makes good progress, light sports training such as swimming or jogging can be started again after 8-12 weeks.

Contact sports, on the other hand, should only be resumed after about 3 months. However, this also varies from patient to patient and depends on many factors. Further articles may also be of interest to you in this regard: Physiotherapy for an unhappy triad and physiotherapy for a meniscus lesion