Knee pain and ankle pain are very common among elderly. However, it is also affecting adolescents as well as adults. In toddlers as well as adolescents some of the knee and ankle problems are in the form of knock knee (genu valgum), or bow legged (genu varum), Osgood-schlatter disease.. In adults and elderly, knee and ankle pain usually starts from the abnormal biomechanics of the whole body and after a period of time, the knee and ankle problems become chronic.
Knee pain and ankle pain is a combination of inflexibility of the spine including hip joints and weak core muscles and compensation to the knee and ankle which leads to shifting of body biomechanics from the hip joints to the knees and ankles. Prolonged knee and ankle joint problems cause pain and discomfort.
When we are doing our activities such as walking, we need to brace our core muscles so our body is balance when we are moving, however, when our posture changes due to weak core muscles, our biomechanics will shift and we will rely on our back and knee joint to move instead of using our complex hips biomechanics. Prolonged movement and pressure on the knees will lead to lateral shifting of the posture and putting more pressure on the knee joint. Knee and ankle pain will likely degenerate with time and once it is degenerated, it will be harder to rehabilitate the spine and extremities.
At All Well Scoliosis Centre, we will address the cause of the problems, we will do a complete evaluation from the spine movements and flexibility, the hip joint complex, voluntary skeletal muscles and involuntary skeletal muscles. We will evaluate posture 3 dimensionally and we will also if necessary take a set of X-ray to better understand the cause of the problems. Once we find out the problems, we will also find effective solution through re aligning the spine as well as extremities, stretching the tight musculatures and strengthen weak musculature, re training posture to reach permanent improvement of knee and ankle biomechanics.