Simply put, the knee joint consists of “tendons, bones, flesh, and skin” as well as major structures such as the nerve and circulatory systems. What is meant by a knee sports injury? In a nutshell, any injury that affects these components of the knee joint and affects the function of the knee joint can be called a knee sports injury! Therefore, it does not only refer to sports injuries, but whether the injury affects the motor function of the knee joint! It contains three types.
① injuries that can clearly cause the injury, such as a clear sports injury, or accidental sprains, falls, bruises in life and work, and traffic injuries, etc., all due to a clear injury that affects the motor function of the knee, which is a knee sports injury.
② no clear cause of injury, but a history of over-activity of the knee joint, which can also cause strain injury of the above-mentioned components of the knee joint, which is also a sports injury of the knee joint, just as a result of the accumulation of microtrauma.
③ Lack of exercise or inability to exercise for other reasons, resulting in muscle atrophy around the knee joint, osteoporosis, and joint adhesions, etc. Although there is no direct or indirect injury to the knee joint, the result is still a reduction or loss of knee joint motion function.
The above three points are the clinical triggers of knee sports trauma and the work areas of knee sports injury physicians. In view of the fact that fractures of the knee joint and its periphery belong to orthopedics in the traditional sense, patellar fractures, tibial plateau fractures, intercondylar and low supracondylar fractures are still treated by our lower extremity trauma department in Sichuan Orthopedic Hospital, but anterior cruciate ligament tibial stop avulsion fractures, posterior cruciate ligament tibial stop avulsion fractures, fibular head avulsion fractures, knee dislocations and patellar dislocations are treated by our department (knee joint department). The Department of Knee and Joint Surgery (Knee and Joint Division) is responsible for the treatment of these fractures.
Primary and secondary tumors, infections, congenital diseases, rheumatologic, immunologic, endocrine diseases and osteoarthritis in and around the knee joint have completely different causes and prognosis than the above-mentioned sports injuries, and are not within the scope of practice of the knee sports injury physician, and should be treated by other orthopedic physicians to avoid delays.
I hope that the above description will help you to identify your condition from the outset, and that you will at least ask yourself one question in light of the above description.
Is the knee joint an “injury” or a “disease”?
Note that clinical issues are very complex and sometimes there can be an underlying disease and an injury at the same time in a patient! However, please be assured that there are two types of injuries that are more “dangerous” than “diseases”.
① open knee sports injuries (meaning skin cracking, tendons, bones, flesh exposed), after debridement, there is still the possibility of joint and bone infection, both septic arthritis, osteomyelitis, etc..
② Knee sports injuries, such as dislocation, ligament rupture or meniscal tear, cartilage injury, etc., are prone to traumatic osteoarthritis due to the severity of the initial condition or the development of the condition when the accurate diagnosis and timely and effective treatment of the first acute injury are missed; in addition, repeated injuries to the synovium, meniscus and ligaments are prone to induce special synovitis in some patients (such as synovial osteochondromatosis, pigmented villous nodules The injury may lead to specific synovitis (e.g. synovial osteochondromatosis, pigmented villous nodules), meniscal cysts, cruciate ligament cysts, etc. Trauma does not usually cause tumors directly! Because trauma is only an “external cause” to the human body!
The following tips are for your reference when seeking medical treatment.
The division of orthopaedic specialties is as follows.
1.Joint surgery (artificial joint replacement).
2.Spinal surgery.
3.Extremity trauma (fracture).
4, hand microsurgery (broken finger replantation and myocutaneous flap surgery).
5, bone tumor surgery.
6.Pediatric orthopedics.
7, geriatric orthopedics.
8, sports trauma (our department mainly focuses on knee trauma, and the core technology is arthroscopic minimally invasive surgery).
Other diagnostic and treatment specialties that may be related to our department.
1.Rheumatology and immunology.
2.Endocrinology.
3.Vascular surgery.
4.Radiology.
5.Laboratory department.
6.Functional examination department.