Customer Reviews

The Knee Sourcebook

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I'm really dependent on the reviews here at Amazon when I select a book, so I don't know why I ordered this book when there were no reviews. Perhaps I can save others some money by saying that there are far better books on knee pain than this one. I actually found more information by doing a Google search for "knee pain". The section on exercise, which in the one part of the book which should be most relevent, is no more than a few pages long. The author lists several exercises in brief, and there are no photos or illustrations to show the exercises. Even stranger, there are NO stretches. I find it hard to understand how this book even came to be published. I wish that I'd been able to go to a bookstore to compare books and select the one that best met my needs, but thankfully I ordered "Knee Pain" by John Garrett, MD, at the same time that I ordered "The Knee Sourcebook" . It has two full chapters on exercises with photos, shows stretches, and has a full variety of exercises to strengthen all the muscles surrounding and supporting the knee.

This entire book reads like what should have been a single chapter in a much larger book. This is like a high-level overview (a summary) of knee anatomy, knee pain diagnosis, and knee treatment and care.

If this is the very first material that you plan to read about your knee, then you might enjoy this book. For example: if you don't already know the names of the ligaments and bones that are involved in the knee joint, then there are some nice pictures and introductory descriptions of them.

Also, if you plan to leave everything about your knee care up to your doctor and other professionals, but you just want some easy-to-read definitions of things your doctors might mention (like arthroscopy, CT, MRI, and the names of a few common syndromes), then this is a nice, simple guide.

I finished reading the entire book in a couple of hours. It is pretty brief and basic. I think I probably would have achieved the same amount of self-education by going to some local clinic and picking up a handful of pamphlets like "about your knee", or "what to expect after knee surgery", or other similar pamphlets that I imagine must exist.

On the plus side: I did enjoy the author's writing style and tone, and I would be favorable to reading more work written by this author (if the content had more depth and detail).

After a knee injury during a hike in NC, the usual therapies weren't working for me. After following the advise in this book--RICE and closed-chain exercises got me back to health. To continue along the healing path, I began including the open-chain exercises and will use them again to prepare my body for vigerous hikes in the future.