Knee Pain : Unfortunate Knee Injuries That Can Result From Skiing

While skiing, have you ever injured your knee?

When you are skiing or snowboarding do you have knee pain?

While the development of release binding has been very useful in reducing the incidence of fractures to a person's lower leg bones, knee injuries are still common among skiers. The knee joint and its associated ligaments, menisci, and bony structures has been cited as causing 30-40 % of all alpine ski injuries.

Most knee injuries have a good prognosis (The definition of prognosis is the probable course and outcome of a disease). However, many knee injuries can lead to significant functional impairment and may terminate a person's skiing career. In order to understand the difference between injuries, read on for more information.

The majority of knee injuries that happen to alpine skiers involves one or more of the knee's ligaments. There are four major knee ligaments, two of which the MCL (medial collateral ligament) and the ACL (Anterior cruciate ligament) are most commonly injured among skiers. In order to determine which injury you have, it is important to visit your physician, do not self diagnose.

If you feel like you have injured your knee and are curious as to what your physician will test for, read through our list of sprain "Grades"... Below is a list of "Grades" that your physician may give to such a knee injury. As the grade goes up, your knee health goes down.

Grade 1 : No laxity (ie. give) in the ligament when stressed. Basically, this means that few if any ligament fibers are themselves torn.

Grade 2 : Moderate laxity in the ligament, but there is a definite endpoint present. This means that some but not all of the ligament fibers may be torn.

Grade 3 : A complete give in the ligament occurs All ligament fibres torn.

Next, you will find a list of traits that can identify the possible presence of an knee injjury. If you notice any of the following symptoms after you have injured your knee speak with a physician asap!

1.) Obvious deformity occurs at the knee

2.) Absolute inability to weight bear on the involved limb.

3.) A large degree of edema (swelling) in the knee joint within a couple of hours of injury

4.) An inability to bring your knee into full extension - ie to make it straight. This is sometimes referred to as "locked knee"

5.) Lastly, there is a severe tenderness when you press on a specific area of the knee.

Mona D ACL Reconstruction and Rehabilitation: A Protocol of Accelerated Rehabilitation. Department of Sports Trauma, Lugano, Switzerland. Presented at 13th International Congress on Ski Trauma and Skiing Safety, Cervinia, Italy. May 1999.

Langran M, Selvaraj S. Snow Sports Injuries in Scotland. A case-control study. Br. J Sports Med. 35:135-140, 2002