My Patient Has Recurrent Knee Pain—How can I prevent future episodes?

A young woman comes to your chiropractic practice with a complaint of anterior knee pain. As spring weather returns, patient activity levels often increase. A sedentary lifestyle through the winter months may now be replaced with jogging, biking, hiking, or other outdoor activities. Anterior knee pain can result from this sudden increase in activity levels. This may affect 1 in 4 active individuals and accounts for 25 to 40 percent of all knee problems presenting to sports medicine clinics. Our hypothetical patient is a 24-year-old female who has decided to once again join her friends and run a halfmarathon in a fundraising event. She restarted a running program and is experiencing a dull ache at the anterior knee. She has sought care periodically for the same symptoms during the past few years. Her pain has progressed in the past week to bother her mildly while walking up the stairs to her office. She has also noticed mild stiffness while walking at the end of the day. She doesn’t want to stop training because she fears she will lose ground with her exercise program. She doesn’t feel that the pain is too debilitating yet, and is seeking your advice and care. She asks if she can incorporate into her program therapeutic exercise aimed at reducing pain and preventing her condition from worsening.