How To Choose The Best Knee Brace Supports

A knee braces is a support that you wear for a painful or injury in the knee. While some people wear them as a result of an injury, others wear them to try and prevent getting hurt in the first place.

There are several kinds of knee braces available:

• Prophylactic knee brace: These are designed to prevent injuries from occuring in the fist place.  They act as extra support, which in theory, will help avoid an injury when participating in a risky sport such as football.

• Functional knee braces:  These are designed to support an already injured knee. People with ligament injuries will often use these braces to help support their weight and inprove comfort while walking.  The main purpose if a functional knee brace is to compensate for a torn ligament but obviously it can never be as good as a healthy knee.

• Rehabilitative knee braces:  These are designed to limit the range of movement of the knee while recovering from an injury or surgery.  The goal is to prevent further damage to the knee and provide a stable position for the knee to heal in.

• Unloader/offloader knee braces: These are designed to give some pain relief to people who are suffering from arthritis in their knees.

How To Choose The Best Knee Brace Supports

Knee brace supports go a long way to giving protection to your knees.  They lower the chances of getting knee injuries.  In case of a knee injury, they prevent further damage by giving stability thus facilitating healing.  They reduce knee joint pain and therefore save money from buying painkillers. These knee supports need not be overweight, costly, or difficult to manage.

These braces are designed to either prevent knee injuries or provide support to unstable knee joints.  Those who actively participate in sports need to have their own pair of knee braces.  The diverse range of motion and pressure subjected to knee joints during these games increase the chances of knee injuries.  Strapping knee supports during such intense activities will protect your knee joints from injury.  Some knee injuries are so severe that surgery needs to be performed to correct it.

There are many kinds of braces in the market.  Searching online for a knee brace can be a daunting task if you have no idea what kind you need.  There are three major ways to categorize the state of your knees.  This will help you choose a brace that suits you.

Choosing a knee brace

Determine whether you have severe, moderate, or mild knee instability. In a scale of one to ten, rate the pain and instability experienced in your knee joint.  Grade one is the least pain and instability while 10 is for the worst state.A superior knee brace support is used when you have a severe knee injury.  Examples of these kinds of injury are ACL or MCL tears.  These are ligaments found in the knee joint.  Their injury causes great pain and instability to the knee joint.  These braces usually cover the whole knee patella.  People involved in high risk sports like motocross need these kinds of braces.  The patella guard protects the shin and the kneecap.

Moderate knee supports are designed to provide stability to moderate knee pains and instabilities.  Hinges located on the knees side control movement and provide support.  These knee supports have thin metallic strips or plastics that control front to back, or side to side movements.

For mild knee instabilities, elastic knee braces can be worn to give the mild support needed by the knee joint.  These braces are made from neoprene or drytex.

In case you are still unsure of the state of your knees, a medical diagnosis will help you determine it.  Your physician will also go a step further to advise you on the most appropriate knee brace supports to use.