Microfracture Surgery - Knee Cartilage Repair

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About the program:

This program is aimed at patients who have undergone microfracture surgery on their knee joint cartilage.

You may start the program immediately after being discharged.

The goal of the program is to prevent muscular atrophy, to restore mobility in the knee, and to eliminate bad compensatory habits.

For a full and timely recovery, it is necessary to perform the exercises daily.

 

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What the program contains:

- The program contains video playlists.

- A new playlist is loaded every day.

- The videos combine a detailed description of the exercise with a visual demonstration of how to correctly perform it.

- The exercises gradually progress in difficulty.

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84 days of rehabilitation

129 different exercises

1228 videos total

 

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Necessary equipment: non-elastic band or belt, exercise bike, resistance band, exercise ball, Pilates ball, foam roller

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Attention!

All rehabilitation exercises are only to be performed until you feel a stretch up to a mild discomfort. Under no circumstances should you cause yourself any pain. If you feel any pain, please take a short break and resume exercising at a reduced strain level. Overexertion will slow down the recovery process!

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This program was created with the help of:

Dr. Marin Benkin, MD, Chief of Arthroscopic Surgery at Serdika Hospital

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Contact:

Please don’t hesitate to ask us your questions. Dial +359889250440 or use the chat bubble on the bottom right.

 

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Cartilage tears are a common type of injury. Professional athletes tend to be most affected: basketball players, football players, runners, etc. Around 60% of all knees that have undergone arthroscopy for meniscus or ligament issues also have cartilage damage.

Hyaline cartilage, a type of cartilage that lines articular surfaces, is a tissue with very limited regenerative abilities. This is because the special cells that produce and maintain the hyaline cartilage are kept in check by the intraarticular (synovial) fluid, which is inhospitable to most cell elements required for cartilage regeneration.

Damage to the articular cartilage usually goes through several stages:

 

 1. Breakage (lesion) in the cartilage layer

 2. Leakage of intraarticular fluid into the damaged area and a change in load distribution around it 

 3. Widening of the damaged area

 4. Damage to the bone directly underneath the cartilage layer

 5. Cyclical repetition of stages 2 to 4 until the entire joint is impaired

 

There are several treatment options for osteochondral (bone and cartilage) lesions:

• Plastic reconstruction via microfracture surgery
• Osteochondral graft transplant via mosaicplasty
• Large allograft transplant

Each of the techniques has its indications and contraindications. The commonly preferred one worldwide is microfracture.

The technique is suitable for smaller scale cartilage lesions and has been proven effective with minimal risk of complications. It consists of carving out small channels in the subchondral bone to allow bone marrow and blood to fill in the affected area. The cells from the substrate have the ability to transform into ones that produce new chondral mater (cartilage). The new cartilage will differ somewhat from native articular cartilage, its biomechanical properties being slightly less optimal.

Despite that, the formation of this new cartilage leads to an improved distribution of load forces and prevents the lesion from growing over time.

The rehabilitation program is of key importance for successful recovery after microfracture surgery.

In particular, the microfracture rehabilitation program takes the following factors into account:

 

 - the need to unload the area where the microfractures have been made, in order to allow new cartilage to come together.

 - keeping postoperative intraarticular swelling under control

 - optimal improvement and recovery of the range of motion in the joint.

 - recovering, maintaining and improving muscular activity and balance

 

Recovery time ranges between 8 to 12 weeks.