treatment

today i was treating a patient trying to get him 70 degrees active knee flexion. lying supine on a plinth the patient started actively flexing, but only reaching 50 degrees. i then got him to practice passive flexion by putting a sheet around his foot so that he could pull with each hand and achieve knee flexion. this is a standard technique that is often used. however he was still not quite getting to where i wanted. so i tied a pulley to the cage over the top of the bed and put a sling under his knee. he would then pull on the handle and the pulley would cause the sling to pull up under his knee. this took the knee into full flexion and he actually achieved 80 degrees. i found it really effective and i think the pt was really happy aswell. i have also discovered some effective techniques to improve quads lag also. moving the knee cap on the good leg and telling the pt to stop you moving it causes them to go into quads firing. get them to incorporate this into the operated leg at the same time so they can get a feel for the co-ordination. once they wake up quads then chuck the quads wedge under the knee and off you go. i found this really effective. also try beginning quads treatment with some eccentric lowering. it strengthens the muscle to allow it to get higher ranges.