One of the most common injuries in contact sports such as football is a knee injury, which can vary in severity from a sprain or soft tissue damage, to dislocation to a tear in one of the four ligament muscles which help your knee joint to work.
Because the knee is so complex, recovering from an injury requires careful treatment and post-treatment rehabilitation, but there are ways to help your recovery beyond following your physiotherapy routine.
Here are some top tips to protect your knee after an injury and help it recover.
Follow RICE Therapy
There is a simple mnemonic that is used in sports therapy to help with minor injuries known as PRICE. PRICE stands for:
- Protection – Avoid further injury to your knee,
- Rest – Avoid putting weight on your knee and reduce physical activity at first before gradually starting recovery exercises,
- Ice – Place an ice pack or cold compress on the knee for no more than 15 minutes every three hours to reduce pain and swelling. In some cases, this step will be replaced with painkillers,
- Compression – Use elastic compression bandages to reduce swelling during the day to help you continue to move,
- Elevation – Keep the knee lifted to encourage blood flow and less swelling.
This can help in the early days after recovery from an injury to get you into a position to start physiotherapy.
If you need further advice from a sports therapist in Maidenhead, get in touch today.
