What Is The Best Patella Tendinopathy Treatment?
2 Steps To A Successful Recovery
Patella Tendinopathy treatment is made very simple and effective in 2 easy steps. As reported in our previous blog What Is Patella Tendinopathy?, is a very common place, overuse condition seen among several high impact sports. Research has shown this can make up to approx 70% of all injuries in a season in sports such as basketball.
Knee pain when running and knee pain when jumping are all classic characteristics and can easily stop people playing sport. The diagnosis is the easy part – the key question then is how do we treat it?
Stretching alone will not cure Patella Tendinopathy.
Patella Tendinopathy treatment should follow 2 simple steps in order for a successful recovery as part of a gold standard, evidence based approach. Stretching alone will not cure Patella Tendinopathy. Due to it’s chronic nature, symptoms will usually last for months. It is causing a ‘disrepair’ of the natural healing process. In order to reverse these changes we advice following these 2 steps over a period of 12 weeks.
Patella Tendinopathy Treatment
Step 1 | Reset
Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy is a relatively new intervention that has scientifically proven, excellent results. These include Plantar Fasciitis, Tennis Elbow, Achilles Tendinopathy and Patella Tendinopathy treatment. Shockwave Therapy owes its heritage to lithotripsy. This is when focused shockwaves break apart gall stones so they could be passed. A number of years later, a bit of lateral thinking and a strong evidence base now presents SWT as the ‘gold standard’ treatment.
As noted in our previous, ‘opathy’ rather than ‘itis’ is used to define the issue. This is characterises the stalling healing process and disrepair (more commonly called scar tissue). SWT in Patella Tendinopathy treatment aims to agitate or shock the injury back to its acute phase of healing. It uses acoustic energy – almost like pressing the reset button. SWT ‘resets’ the stalled healing process. It expedites a return to activity and has a noticeable reduction in pain. It is then vital to introduce progressive load to the tissues to ensure an optimum recovery.
Step 2 | Strengthen
As we know the Patella Tendon plays a crucial role in absorbing and producing force when walking, running and jumping. As a result, part of the Patella Tendinopathy treatment should focus on regaining localised strength of the quadriceps muscles, as well as improving any weak links in the kinetic chain.
A recent study published in 2015 showed that a tailored, progressive strengthening programme provided significant improvement as part of Patella Tendinopathy treatment.
Shockwave Therapy, in combination with a tailored strengthening programme, gives the most significant improvements in Patella Tendinopathy treatment.
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