This is one of the most common injuries caused as a result of motor vehicle collisions particularly those involving motorcycles. Knee injury can have serious long term effects disrupting work and personal life particularly if the injury involves reconstructive surgery or joint replacement. If you have suffered harm as a result of the negligence of another person you are entitled to instruct a knee injury solicitor to recover your losses and to claim damages for injury and pain and suffering.
Road traffic accidents are a major cause of traumatic injury and represent more than half of all cases handled by personal injury solicitors. If you have been injured in a car accident or any other type of accident and you want to make a compensation claim for personal injury and loss just complete the contact form, email our lawyers offices or use the solicitors helpline. Our knee injury solicitors offer advice at no cost and without further obligation. If our knee injury solicitors deal with your claim it will be on a no win no fee basis, compensation is paid in full and you do not have to fund or finance your car accident compensation claim.
Injuries to the knee are wide ranging from minor injuries to severe disablement. Problems can vary from a simple twist to a crushed knee cap (patella) or total dislocation with bone fractures. The most serious injuries occur in vehicle collisions and industrial accidents involving machinery. Serious damage can result in the necessity for a replacement artificial joint with long term problems and disabilities. You may be entitled to an award of damages in a knee injury claim if you have suffered harm as a direct result of the negligence of another person. There are time limits and you need to take legal advice from a knee injury solicitor as soon as possible after the incident.
Injury or trauma to the knee whether the result of a car accident, a work accident, slip, trip or fall, can have a profound effect on a person's life.
Common knee injuries include:
Knee sprain
A knee sprain is the result of a pull or partial tear of muscles or ligaments. Treatment includes rest for 2-3 weeks, crutches or brace and ice applications.
Bursitis
People who constantly kneel to work, such as plumbers, roofers, carpet layers, coal miners or gardeners are at greatest risk of developing knee bursitis.
Pre-patellar bursitis (also known as Housemaids knee or Water on the knee is a swelling and inflammation of the bursa on the front of the knee cap. The knee bursa is in the front of the knee cap, and it may be damaged by prolonged kneeling or a blow. Symptoms include painful swelling over the knee cap. Rest, strapping, avoiding kneeling can help improve the symptoms. Occasionally draining the excess fluid from the knee is required.
Pes Anserine bursitis can be caused by direct trauma or overuse. Medial knee pain and skin numbness below patella (knee cap) may be present
Inflammation of ligament
Pellegrini-Stieda Lesion. This is an inflammation of the ligament on the inside of the knee that attaches the thigh bone to the main lower leg bone. It is usually caused by injury to the knee in the form of a blow to the side of the knee. Pain, swelling and tenderness is usually present at the site. Physiotherapy may be of assistance.
Cartilage tears
Damage to one of the two menisci in each knee joint. The menisci are cartilages that run around the top end of the tibia (main lower leg bone) to deepen the socket of the joint and stabilise it. The cause of the tear is usually abnormal twisting of the knee.
Symptoms include pain, swelling, clicking and sometimes locking of the knee joint that is worse with movement. The joint often feels unstable.
Rest of the knee with strapping and using crutches may allow the knee to recover. Locked knees can be released by manipulation. X-ray and MRI to make diagnosis. In severe cases surgery (menisectomy) may be necessary to remove the torn cartilage.
Ligament tears
Two sets of ligaments in the knee give it stability: the cruciate and the collateral ligaments. The cruciate ligaments are located inside the knee joint and connect the thighbone (femur) to the shinbone (tibia).
The cruciate ligament located toward the front of the knee is the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), and the one located toward the rear of the knee is called the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL). The collateral ligaments are located at the inner side and outer side of the knee joint.
If you injure your ACL, you may not feel any pain immediately. However, you might hear a popping noise and feel your knee give out from under you. You may experience swelling of your knee and pain when standing. Walking or running when the ACL is injured can result in cartilage damage. Conservative treatment and surgery is available.
PCL injuries disrupt knee joint stability because the shinbone can sag backwards. Surgery is not always needed. However, if the PCL injury pulls a piece of bone out of the top of the shinbone, an operation is needed to reattach the ligament.
If the medial collateral ligament has a small partial tear, conservative treatment usually works: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. If the collateral ligament is completely torn an operation may be needed.
Patella (knee cap) Injuries
Patello-Femoral Pain Syndrome is a common knee injury caused by overuse or strain to the knee. There is pain in the front part of the knee behind or around patella (knee cap) that is a dull ache with sharp exacerbations aggravated by climbing or descending stairs or slopes. Physiotherapy may be of assistance.
Patellar dislocations most commonly occur due to twisting injury to knee. Only 10 % are caused by direct trauma. Symptoms include:
Initial treatment consists of immobilising the knee, followed by gentle active range-of-motion (ROM) exercises. Physical therapy should be involved to help regain joint and leg strength. Surgery may be necessary in severe cases.
Serious knee injury is a common aliment in Australia particularly in the elderly who may sustain a minor trip slip or fall on the pavement however the vulnerability of joints that may already be troubled by arthritis in the aged may turn what might otherwise be considered as a minor problem into an injury that threatens mobility, not to mention the problems that extensive surgery may bring even on a short term basis. A knee injury compensation claim can attract a substantial damages award particularly in cases where mobility is compromised. Instructing a knee injury solicitor to sue for compensation is well within your legal rights if you have been the victim of negligence.
If you have suffered physically, mentally or financially, you should consider making an accident compensation claim. For telephone advice at no cost from specialist personal injury solicitors just call the helpline. Our knee injury solicitors will assess the strength of your claim and will advise you on your potential award of compensation without any further obligation.Take the strain from your compensation claim – contact us now for advice on liability and an estimate of the value of your award.
The knee is very important to a proper human gait. It needs to extend and flex during movement in order for us to run, walk, kick and sit properly. There are four bones that make up the knee joint. The femur is the upper bone that extends from the thigh to the knee. It can be fractured or dislocated from the knee joint. The tibia and fibula extend down from the knee and help with a bit of rotation of the knee. The knee rotates just a lit bit and too much rotation can damage the ligaments. The patella helps with the muscle attachment and stability of the knee. It is a free floating bone that is disk shaped.
There are two major muscle groups that balance each other out and allow movement of the joints. The quadriceps muscles are on the front of the upper leg and extend the joint to a straight position. The hamstrings flex the joint and are on the posterior aspect of the upper leg. The patella is encased within the quadriceps muscles.
The stability of the knee joint is due to 4 different ligaments. These are thick bands of connective tissue that hold the knee joint together. The medial and lateral collateral ligaments are on the side of the knee and keep the knee from sliding sideways. The anterior cruciate ligament and the posterior cruciate ligament keep the knee from sliding forward or backward. They form an X shape on the surface of the knee. There are also shock absorbing cartilage pieces called menisci that lubricate the joint and keep bone from rubbing on bone.
The knee is susceptible to injuries. It can undergo direct blows in sports injuries or can twist or bend in the wrong way so as to damage the knee joint. Direct blows can bend the knee sideways, damaging the medial or lateral collateral injury. The ligaments can be stretched or torn. Grade one strains just stretch the joint; grade two strains partially tear the ligament; grade three strains completely tear the joint in two. Certain twisting injuries can stress the meniscus or cartilage so that it can tear or pinch itself between the tibial surface and the edges of the femoral condyle, which results in the tear of the meniscus.
You can damage the ligaments and tendons around the knee by acute hyperflexion or hyperextension of the knee by overuse or direct trauma. These are called knee strains. They are graded just like ligamentous strains. Third degree strains completely disrupt the muscle. You can also get an inflammation of the bursa around the knee that cushion the knee. The bursa can become painful and swollen. Knee injuries can cause sudden swelling from bleeding within the joint associated with inability to bend the knee. They can also be more insidious and swell over time.
Signs and symptoms of knee injury include pain in the knee and swelling of the knee joint itself. There can be difficulty bending the knee and inability to bear weight on the knee. If the swelling is immediate, then the ligaments are primarily affected. If the swelling occurs over time, then the cartilage or menisci are primarily affected. You can have injuries affecting more than one aspect of the knee which confuses the picture. There can be tenderness over the medial or lateral collateral ligaments along with bruising of the knee. Swelling can be intermittent and worse with activity or may gradually regress as you rest the knee. Pain may be at rest or may be during activity only. Pain with walking down stairs suggests you have a patellar injury from bending the quadriceps muscle in a certain way. Popping or grinding of the knee suggests a meniscal injury.
Doctors diagnose a knee injury through a careful history of the injury and a physical examination which shows the signs and symptoms of the knee injuries noted above. The doctor will look at knee stability and will look at bruising and tenderness. The knee can be evaluated with a plain x-ray or a CT scan or MRI scan of the knee. The MRI scan is a much better test and can show torn ligaments. Doctors can also do arthroscopy, which involves a camera that is inserted into the joint. Torn ligaments can be seen via an arthroscope. Surgeries to the knee can be done via an arthroscope, particularly torn ligament and torn meniscus surgery.
Almost all knee injuries heal with either surgery or rest. If the doctor needs to do surgery, it can be an open surgery or a surgery using the arthroscope. Rest, ice, compression and elevation or RICE is an acronym that helps heal injuries to the joint that are not surgically correctable. Each injury is unique and needs specialized orthopaedic care.
LAWYER HELPLINE: ☎ 1800 339 958The author of the substantive medical writing on this website is Dr. Christine Traxler MD whose biography can be read here