YOUR HEALTH - MEDICINE 101

KNEES
If you have a bum knee, you're not alone. Knee pain is the most
common reason people see an orthopedic specialist. You don't have to
go down on bended knee, but just listen up to Dr. Paul Caldwell.

Ever hear of the expression Œwell isn't that just the bee's knees'?
It means that something is outlandishly good. Here's a bee's knee
(holds up two fingers) but no matter how long I study it, it doesn't
impress me nearly as much as one of our own knees.

The human knee is a hinge joint, where this bone, the femur or thigh
bone, joins with the two bones of the shin à the large tibia and the
smaller fibula.. (shows articulated bones).

There's another bone in the knee à the knee cap or patella. It's a
small bone à right in the middle of a tendon.. A tendon is a piece
of gristle that attaches a muscle to a bone. The knee-cap sits in
the middle of the tendon of the thigh muscle. It prevents wearing or
rubbing of the tendon à like this à as the large muscles of the thigh
flex and extend the knee.

Usually, it's the ligaments and the cartilage that are injured.
Ligaments are tough fibrous bands that join bone to bone à these
collaterral (on the side) ligaments stop movement like this. If you
get hit from the side you can stretch or tear these ligaments.

Inside the knee there are two other ligaments called the cruciates -
(they 're called that because they are arranged like a cross). They stop
the thigh from moving backwards on the shin à a direct blow here tears
one of these cruciate ligaments and the knee is quite unstable.

Perhaps the commonest knee injury is to the cartilage. Cartilage is
that shiny smooth surface that lines joints à here it is in the
chicken wing. In the knee, there are two cartilages à each of them
roughly C shaped. They're thicker at the outside, thinner in the
middle and they stabilize the femur when it rotates like this.

Injuries to the cartilages, or menisci, are very common à small
pieces of the thinner inside fray off and may get caught, or a larger
piece of cartilage may tear off. The so called bucket-handle tear
looks like this, with a large piece of cartilage pushed into the
centre of the knee. It's a painful condition that locks your knee in
place.

To repair damage in the knee, surgeons often use an arthroscope, a
flexible surgical instrument with a small light attached, to enter
the joint and carefully clean up the frayed and damaged cartilage.
Pretty fascinating, eh?

When bees discover something outlandishly good à do they ever say
"Well: isn't that just the human's knees!".