Regular exercise in a pool helps torn knee cartilage heal, surgeon says

Work in swimming pools with people who hold physical therapy jobs can stave off visits to the operating room for 40-plus-year-old patients with knee issues, according to the chief of orthopedic surgery at a hospital in Los Angeles.

A minimum of two months and a maximum of three months of well-designed exercise in the non-weight-bearing circumstances of a pool will help people suffering from meniscus tears avoid surgical repairs, Dr. Robert Kapper at Cedars-Sinai Medical Group said.

"Patients ask me all the time, how can a pool program help me with my knee?" Klapper said. "Here's the theory: Imagine the torn meniscus is like a blister in the palm of your hand. If you clipped a hundred roses in your back yard, your hand would hurt and you would see that the skin is torn. What is the treatment? If you gently and carefully continue to clip roses, the blister will become a callus. That's how the pool exercises work on a torn meniscus. What was sore, vulnerable tissue turns into protected, callus-like tissue."

The pool allows one to unload weight under zero gravity circumstances, which releases stress off the joint in the knee, he said.

The muscles surrounding the knee joint strengthen and are more capable of stabilizing a sore knee.