Joint Disease Rehabilitation
What are "tendons"?
A tendon is the connective tissue that connects the muscle to a bone. Its almost a mixture of bone with muscle, its sort of the in between point between those two tissues and it functions to keep the muscle anchored to the bone, so when a muscle contracts it exerts its force through the tendon on to the bone and pulls the bone in the direction that the muscle wants the bone to move.
What is "tendonitis"?
Tendonitis is an inflamation problem that happens to a tendon. A tendon is the connection between a muscle and a bone. Tendonitis is, more frequently, caused by repetitive stress movements through that muscle onto the bone. So if there's a particular movement- an example that comes to mind are people that work on an assembly line, where they're doing the same movement thousands and thousands and thousands of times, every day, five days a week. If there's a particular weight they're having to lift, and they're moving that arm in the same position over and over and over again then they put alot of stress on that tendon, many many many times. And over time they develope tiny little microscopic tears in the tendon. Because of those tears the tendon starts to swell. You get a chronic inflammatory swelling around the tendon, and that can be very painful. There are pain receptors in a tendon, and once that tendon starts to suffer from that particular movement that's putting undue stress on it then it begins to swell and becomes painful and thats what we call tendonitis.
What is "runner's knee"?
Runner's knee is a type of tendonitis that happens in the patellar tendon that attaches your quad muscles (the muscles on the front of your leg) down through the kneecap to the bone just below your knee joint. Runner's knee is the result of microscopic tears in the tendon that have caused a chronic inflammatory process that becomes very painful, and is often associated with a deep knee bend. The treatment for runner's knee is to try to minimize the inflammatory process on the tendon and remove the inciting injury; whatever it is that that patient is doing that's causing those microscopic tears in the tendon. We're going to want to try to remove that and then treat the inflammation process in order to give the tendon an opportunity to heal back up and heal those little microscopic tears.
What is "golfer's elbow"?
Golfer's elbow, which is also known as medial epicondylitis, is a type of tendonitis that's located at the elbow in the forearm. The flexor muscles, the muscles that bend your fingers and your wrist, attach to the elbow bone through a tendon. When there's undue stress on those muscles from some type of a repetitive movement, that's golfer's elbow, and the reason we call it "golfer's elbow" is because golfers, the way they hold the golf club, are contracting those muscles over and over and over again with large forces as they swing and they hit the ball. There are large forces that are transmitted through that muscle group into that tendon, and over time they may develop little microscopic tears in that tendon, and then it swells and it becomes very painful. The treatment for golfer's elbow would be to minimize the stresses through that muscle that are being transmitted on to the tendon, decrease the inflammatory process, give that tendon an opportunity to heal, and then eventually take a look at the technique with which they are doing that particular activity. If it's a golfer, you want to take a look at their swing and see what is abnormal about their specific technique to see if you can change the technique and take the abnormal pressures off of those muscles, and therefore minimise the chance of them redeveloping that particular type of tendonitis.
What is "tennis elbow"?
Tennis elbow is a type of tendonitis that's also known as lateral epocondolitis. It is a microscopic tear in the tendon that attaches the finger and wrist extensors to the elbow bone. It often develops with some sort of a repetitive movement, such as a tennis player, who is swinging their racket many many times a day, day after day after day. Those forces, the tremendous forces that are transmitted through the ball hitting the racket are absorbed though the arm, through the muscles and into that tendon. Over time that tenon starts to tear a little bit, very microscopic little tears, they swell and then over time that becomes very painful. So the treatment for it would be to eliminate those abnormal forces that are being transmitted through the muscle and therefore into the tendon, decrease the swelling in the tendon so that will promote healing and diminish the pain that the patient is experiencing. Once the pain has resolved because the tendon has healed and the swelling has gone, then we would want to take a look at their particular activity that caused the problem in the first place. If it's a tennis player, we're going to want to take a look at the way they swing their racket and see if there's some abnormal way in which they're doing it so we can minimize them from developing that particular type of tendonitis again.
