RELIEVE KNEE PAIN WITH JUST YOUR HANDS

by Catherine M. Scott
(Vicksburg, MI)

In The Groove Brace For Runner's Knee Pain

A simple two-handed maneuver could give you 20 minutes of relief from your knee pain. A new concept in physical therapy exercise was developed by Brian Mulligan in the 1980’s. It has been rediscovered and modified. All you need is two hands and a chair.

Here are the directions for the right leg. Sit down and place your right hand on the side of your thigh and your left hand on the inside of your leg just below the knee and apply gentle pressure toward the center of your leg. Now move your leg several times as though you were kicking. Stand up and take a few steps or bend at your knees. If this works your pain will be relieved. If it does not help relieve the pain, then reverse your hand position and put your left hand on the inside of your right thigh above the knee and your right hand on the outside of your lower leg just below the knee. Now kick several times. Stand up and bend at your knees or walk a few steps and see if your knee pain improves. If not, you have only wasted a few minutes of your time and the maneuver will not help you. Your knee problem is probably not due to medial/lateral knee pain (runner’s knee) or patellofemoral syndrome.

If you do get relief with either maneuver, then a new brace on the market may help you. This orthotic knee brace was invented by Alice Brown, RPh. PharmD, FMPA. She was in a severe head on car accident and had multiple injuries and surgeries. During the first year after the accident she had to relearn to walk five times. While walking on a treadmill after these surgeries, Alice injured her knee and went her back in the wheel chair.

Alice’s physical therapist, Mel Svorinic, did an exercise that took away her knee pain and allowed her to walk without pain for about 20 minutes. Alice and went home, cut up old knee braces, took the stays out of her hand braces and shaped them to duplicate the physical therapy maneuver that helped. When she walked into her next physical therapy session Mel was so surprised he needed to see her brace. Impressed with the design he told her to patent it.

In the Groove® rehabilitative knee orthosis/brace was the result. It is lightweight, comfortable, and helps to rehabilitate your muscles just by wearing it during weight bearing activity. Check out inthegroovebrace.com for further information.

Remember that braces are FDA waived, so this product is not evaluated by the FDA, and it is not designed to diagnose, cure or treat any disease since it is not evaluated for this.