Some people often experience knees that make noise when moved. This does not happen without reason.
So, the cause of the sound in the knee is because the femur (thigh bone) and tibia (shin bone) collide, or the kneecap with the femur bone. So there is friction between the two bones,
Cartilage when it collides with other cartilage should not make a sound. The sound can be caused by osteoarthritis or calcification. Cartilage that has undergone calcification is like the inside of a young coconut that has had its coconut flesh scooped out. So, if it is hit by another object, it will rub directly and make a sound.
Usually, patients will not be aware of the sound alone, so it is considered normal, they will not go to the doctor, but when there is pain, then the patient will look for a doctor.
Currently, osteoarthritis cases are very numerous in orthopedic polyclinics. Nearly 50 percent of patients come with complaints of knee pain.
Not All Knee Pain Patients Need Surgery
However, not all patients with complaints of knee pain need surgery.
So when a patient comes to the orthopedic clinic, the first thing the doctor does is take a history and exchange ideas with the patient.
Some questions that need to be asked to patients include:
- How long has the complaint been going on?
- At what point does the pain occur?
- How will the pain go away, just by resting, compressing it or what?
- Does it interfere with your daily activities?
This is all done in an interview, after which the doctor will perform a clinical examination by applying both active and passive pressure.
Four Stages of Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis is divided into four levels or grades. Namely grade one, two, three, and four.
If stage one does not require medication, no treatment is needed, just educate the patient. What is important is what the do's and don'ts are.
If the patient enters stage two, the intervention is to provide painkillers, vitamins, and nutrition for the cartilage.
Stage three, the doctor will usually give an injection, vitamin injection or joint fluid supplement that is inserted into the knee.
At stage four, surgery is performed.
From this examination it can be determined whether there is pain or limited movement or not.
To determine whether a patient has osteoarthritis or not, the doctor will perform an X-ray. From the X-ray, the patient's calcification grade can be determined.
Surgery on Grade 4 Knee Problems
Grade four means that the cartilage is gone, it's bone to bone, the bone is completely attached. Well, then we can't fix it. Like a car, the tire is gone, we can't do anything else, we can replace it with a new tire.
The affected part of the knee can be replaced with an implant to create a new joint.
So it's not the bone that's replaced, many people think that the whole knee is replaced, no, not the bone, not everything is replaced. There's no need to replace the shell, what's replaced is the joint. The fewer joints that are replaced, the more comfortable the knee is like the original.
Joint replacement procedures now no longer have to use conventional methods, but can also be done with the help of robots, aka robotic surgical assistants .
Robots in knee replacement procedures act as navigation tools. They do not completely replace the role of doctors, but they can help doctors do their jobs more effectively.
Before cutting the bone, the robot will give suggestions, for example, whether the cut should be 9mm or 10mm.
The article was created based on the Healthy Monday program in collaboration between EMC Healthcare and Liputan6, with resource persons Dr. Albert Gandakusuma, Sp.OT & Dr. Moch Nagieb, Sp.OT (K), FICS, MARS, AIFO-K, FiSQUA (Orthopedic Traumatology Specialist Doctors at EMC Alam Sutera Hospital).