What's More Important Than Learning to Wash Your Hands? Learning Why.

If I tell you to push your knee into full extension 10 times every day preventatively, will that alone do the trick? In my experience, no (because people won’t). What if I teach you that, on days when you have to kneel and sit cross-legged a lot for your job as a preschool teacher, you need to do at least 10 knee extensions to balance it out? Or if I teach you that on days when you wake up and your knee is a bit achy, you need to perform the exercise then - as many reps as it takes? Or if you sit on a plane for 8 hours, you should do the knee extensions when you land?

My teaching patients why they need to do a particular exercise is more important than giving a generic prescription. Telling a patient that doing 10 knee extensions a day will help is true (for a patient who resolved his problem in therapy with knee extension). But it’s more effective to explain that, well, you might not need it that much and you might need it more than that. You may never need it again! But ... you do need it when your knee is stiff and when your day has involved a lot of time in the other direction. Of course you need to do it when it’s achy (especially to prevent it from turning into pain), but by doing the exercise preventatively, we don’t expect it to get achy often.
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Equipping patients with knowledge makes treatment more effective by, in essence, making it more individualized. All of the factors mentioned above affect how much you’ll need your knee exercise in the future. By being able to read the signs, though, you can figure out what causes your knee pain to recur and what the optimal prevention program for you entails. -- Laura