Rehabilitation

Abstract

Supervised rehabilitation after partial arthroscopic meniscectomy is frequently considered as nonessential because usually, patients rapidly regain functional autonomy without specific postoperative treatment. However, quantitative evaluations of knee function after arthroscopic meniscectomy have shown recovery to be still incomplete 4–8 weeks after surgery, when the majority of patients already have resumed work and sports-related or other functional activities [11, 24]. Abnormalities in leg movements and muscle activations during submaximal locomotor activities such as gait and stairs ascent and descent have been observed up to 4 weeks post-surgery [12]. At 8 weeks, patients often still walk and descend stairs at a slower pace, suggesting that complete locomotor recovery has not been attained [12]. In addition, strength evaluations have revealed residual deficits of 20–40% in the knee extensor muscles and of up to 20% in the knee flexor muscles, 3 weeks after partial arthroscopic meniscectomy [10, 14, 15].