Knee Arthroscopy

This is a video clip on a normal knee joint. In the medial compartment, notice the smooth shiny white surface of the knee cartilage. The bone at the top is the thigh bone and the flatter bone at the bottom of the screen is the leg bone. The tongue of tissue sandwiched in between is the meniscus. The meniscus functions like the shock absorber of the knee, preventing the cartilage from impacting each other. The meniscus is easily damaged in twisting injury and when injured, causes knee pain and swelling. Sometimes it gets caught and jammed the knee. (watch video clip on Meniscus Flap Tear)

In the notch examination, the structure that is being tugged at is the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). This is a commonly injured ligament in soccer players. It plays a very important role in knee stability. (watch video on Torn Knee Ligament) In the lateral compartment, the structure is fairly similar to the medial compartment.