How are knee injuries diagnosed?

The history of how you hurt your knee will give your doctor a good idea of what the diagnosis will be. Certain movements, activities, and sports often cause specific types of knee injuries.

You'll be examined and your doctor will want to know how well you can move your knee, whether you can walk on it, and how much pain you have. When ordering tests, there are several that your doctor can choose from and, of course, you may go for more than one to either refine the diagnosis or to confirm of it.

Most likely, the first test you will have is an x-ray to see if there is any problem with the bones. More specific testing can be done with computerized axial tomography (CT scan) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Some doctors may ask for a bone scan to see that the bone itself is ok. Finally, the doctor may want to look directly into your knee with an arthroscope. To do an arthroscopy, the arthroscope - which has a camera attached to the end - is inserted into the knee through a small incision.