(upbeat jazz music)
- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- And I'm Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
In our opinion. - In our opinion.
- All right, today we're gonna talk
about the Cho-pat knee brace and-
- Cho-pat.
- Cho-pat. - How do you spell that?
I'm gonna write it , so that we know how to-
- Cho-pat. - To spell it.
And it's a knee brace, that's used
really for a specific problem.
Mostly patellar or tendonitis.
And in those cases it can work quite well,
I don't know that I've used it for anything else.
But, by the way, do we have the brace?
Oh yeah, it's right there.
- Oh yeah, I'm prepared, Bob.
- Okay. Well, let's go around to the back.
Let's walk to the back and we'll show 'em, Brad.
- Let's take 'em to our studio and education room.
Okay, here we go.
Can you zoom in Nancy?
Alright, so here we go. We're looking at...
Can I get that knee, that model of the knee first?
Here we got, we're looking at the right knee.
Go ahead, give it a toss.
That's good.
Okay, we take the clothes off, we take the skin off,
and here we've got the quadricep muscles right here,
the patella, or the knee cap.
There we go show 'em on there.
The tendon- - [Bob] Here's the quadricep,
attaches into the patella, or the kneecap.
- And on here, we actually have the kneecap
or the tendon detached.
So you can look into the ACL, et cetera.
But, this tendon right here, this little section right here-
- [Bob] Why don't you turn and grab too so that you can...
- This would be the front of the knee.
- [Bob] So here again, quadricep,
coming down into the kneecap,
and then the kneecap attaches to the patella tendon.
- [Brad] So we're looking right here.
We got the femur, patella, and the tendon right there.
Now what happens is this tendon can become stressed,
and there could be a number of different reasons for it.
From tight quadricep muscles,
It could be from overuse syndrome,
Maybe you haven't been running,
and all of a sudden you start running
too much, too soon and it stresses out.
It might be the type of shoes you wear, some of the impact.
There's a number of different ways-
- Well, another thing could be is if you grow too fast.
Let's say this bone is growing too long, too fast,
and this quadricep is not keeping up,
that's gonna pull on that kneecap harder,
and it's gonna pull on that tendon harder.
And often we end up what is called Osgood-Schlatter disease.
- That's a mouthful, yes.
- So by the way, I promised I was gonna spell Cho-pat,
wasn't I?
- Yeah. Can you throw in a Cho-pat strap here?
Let's get down to brass tax here. Good toss.
Okay. So what we're looking at is this tendon right here,
which is right there below the kneecap you can feel it,
and we're looking right there.
So this tendon - [Bob] That's the red part.
- Yep. This red part right here gets inflamed.
In other words, it gets tender.
- [Bob] Sure.
- If you go up and down steps,
a lot of times it will be painful.
When you do your activities
is when it typically hurts the most
- In the case of Osgood-Schlatter's disease.
And actually this tendon actually starts pulling
on the bone right here,
the tubercle here they call it, or bone.
And a little bump right here where it attaches.
And actually if it starts pulling too long and too hard,
you actually get little fractures there,
little avulsion fractures. - Sure.
- And in that case, unfortunately
with Osgood-Schlatter's, quite often, you need to have rest.
You need to let the body catch up,
and you could be on rest for a year with that.
You know, it's just unfortunate
that it's one of those issues.
- But if you just got tendonitis, it's different story.
You're gonna ice it.
You're gonna use anti-inflammatories,
and you're gonna use this little strap.
It's a lovely device.
I've known some people that just love them.
They're about $10 or $12.
They're relatively cheap velcro.
And let's see.
- Well, why don't we...
Do you wanna put it around that,
or do you wanna put it around my knee?
- Well, let's do it here first.
Here's the kneecap.
You put it around so this.
- Let me hold it.
- Yeah, go ahead and hold that, Bob.
- So again that this knee's facing you now.
- Yep. So there's like a bead in here, okay.
Like a little piece of rope.
It's a little padded, but it's firm density.
You go around underneath the kneecap.
- There's the kneecap right here.
- Yep. And you just velcro to the back of your knee,
and put some pressure on there.
It disperses that pressure.
And you know, if it's the right thing to do.
'Cause when you put it on and you do your activity,
your pain will go from say a seven, down to a three or less.
It just feels good.
- And you wear it very snug.
Correct? - Right, yeah.
- You wanna put it on me, Brad?
- Yeah. Let's put it on Bob.
- Let's go with my right knee.
- Yeah, There you go. Whoa, Look at that leg.
All right, so here's Bob's kneecap.
I can feel it right here.
Here's the tendon, goes from here to here,
and it's about that wide, it's a nice strap in tendon.
And we're gonna go right across here, and velcro it on.
And you're gonna play with that.
How tight you need it, you know, you can tighten it up.
If it's too tight, loosen up.
If it's on, you know...
It's one of those things
you will get a feel for real quickly.
And that's all there is to it.
They're real nice devices.
- Yeah, people who tend to be at risk for this
also are ones that obviously do a lot of jumping.
I think they actually call it jumper's knee even.
And so, I mean you're gonna know if you have it.
It's gonna hurt right underneath your kneecap,
and you're gonna hurt right on that tendon.
So that's a good way to diagnose it.
- All right. - Good luck with it.
- Thank you.