Weak knees can significantly impact your daily life and quality of life.You’re not the only
one whose knees feel weak or unsteady when they walk, climb stairs, or stand. Knees that are weak can’t do daily things because they aren’t powerful or stable enough. Anyone can have knee problems, regardless of age. Weak knees can disrupt your life and lead to more serious health issues if untreated.
Knee Weakness
Three bones—the femur, tibia, and patella—join to form the knee, the body’s largest hinge joint. Cartilage protects these bones where they meet, but aging and overuse can wear it down, causing osteoarthritis, which affects 18% of women and 10% of men 60 and older, according to the WHO.
What are Weak Knee Symptoms?
Signs of knee weakness vary by cause but may include:
- Swelling, stiffness
- Redness
- A burning sensation
- Instability
- Joint popping sounds when bent
- Unable to straighten knee
- Trouble standing from a sitting position
Treatments for Knee Weakness
Following are the few treatments for knee weakness:
Knee-Strengthening Exercises
Like any body part, our knees weaken with age. If we overwork them with sports or long walks, they may feel weaker faster. The good news is that knee strength doesn’t require a gym membership or heavy lifting. Regular, gentle exercises can help maintain knee strength. Try three sets of 10 repetitions for each exercise below. Start slowly and add sets or repetitions to avoid injury or weakness.
- Supported Squats: To keep your balance, do squats in front of a chair or wall first. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and back straight. Squat. Sit back in a chair without letting your knees touch your toes. Stand up again. Start with quarter or half squats and increase.
- Sit-to-Stand Chair: Sit slowly in a chair, then stand up. As you get stronger, move the chair lower as you start. Hold weights or use one leg for extra difficulty.
- Side-Leg Raise: While you’re lying down, lift your top leg 6 inches off the ground.
- Slowly lower it after holding.
Physical Therapy for Knee Weakness
Knee disorders are treated effectively with physical therapy and rehabilitation. Regular physical therapy can reduce knee weakness pain and improve quadriceps strength and range of motion. Those with moderate pain and knee weakness may benefit most from this. The physiotherapist may tell you to do routines at home while wearing the right shoes. They might look at the patient’s stance and tell them to fix it so that their knees don’t have to work as hard.
RICE
Rest, ice, compression, and elevation are all parts of RICE. This is suggested for people who have hurt their knees or lower legs. After hurting your knee, you need to take a full break to help the joint and supporting muscles heal. Ice therapy also reduces inflammation and swelling. Raise the knee above the heart to reduce swelling and throbbing and make healing easier.
Diagnostics of Weak Knees
The major symptoms of weak knees can be diagnosed, but a physical exam and imaging tests are more accurate. Thus, an orthopedist should only diagnose knee problems to determine the cause and treatment. Sudden knee weakness may indicate underlying medical conditions, so it’s important to find and treat them.
The clinician may first assess the patient’s weakness’s nature and severity. In the physical exam, the knee pain doctor in Dallas may assess knee range of motion. X-rays are essential for diagnosing knee osteoarthritis, a common cause of knee weakness. In income cases, the doctor may order an MRI in addition to the X-ray because it is clearer and helps diagnose.
How to Prevent Knee Weakness?
Exercise is the best knee strength builder. Take care not to overdo it; just focus on exercises that work your quadriceps, hamstrings, and gluteus muscles. Maintaining some simple but effective exercises will rebuild your knee strength.
Some easy knee exercises are:
- Flexing knees
- Knee extension
- Swimming
- Wall squats
Risk Factors
Many factors can cause knee problems, including:
- Excess weight. Being overweight or obese puts stress on your knees even when walking or climbing stairs. Accelerating joint cartilage breakdown increases osteoarthritis risk.
- Lack of muscle strength or flexibility.: A lack of strength and flexibility can cause knee injuries. Strong muscles stabilize and protect joints, and muscle flexibility allows full range of motion.
- Sports or jobs: Some sports strain knees more than others. Alpine skiing’s rigid boots and falls, basketball’s jumps and pivots, and running and jogging’s repeated knee impacts all increase knee injury risk. Construction and farming can increase knee stress and risk. Previously hurt and knee injuries are more likely to recur.
When to See a Doctor
Contact pain management in Dallas if:
- Can’t put weight on your knee or it feels unstable or gives out
- Weak knees and swelling
- Cannot fully extend or flex your knee
- Clearly deformed leg or knee
- Have knee redness, pain, and swelling plus a fever.
- Have severe injury-related knee pain