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Chronic Knee Pain Essay

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Introduction
Chronic knee pain is a common symptom in pathologies and conditions such as tibiofemoral and patellofemoral osteoarthritis (OA), anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears, and patellofemoral pain (PFP). These injuries are treated by physical therapists today more than ever before.
In the United States, OA is the most common joint-related disorder (Zhang and Jordan, 2010). This study also reported that OA specific to the knee occurred in 13% of women and 10% of males over the age of 60 years old in 2010. The prevalence of OA is likely to increase in the future with the aging of the American population (Zhang and Jordan, 2010). This increase in OA prevalence is likely to have a major economic impact as well; a 2011 study utilizing …show more content…

Previous studies have shown that the PFP tends to be exacerbated during activities that require high knee extensor forces of the quadriceps muscle group, such as ascending and descending stairs, running, or squatting (Brechter & Powers, 2002). People with both OA in the knee and PFP have been shown to have lower knee extensor moments during level walking, and it has been theorized that this pattern is in an attempt to decrease the loading on the patellofemoral joint and therefore decrease pain (Kaufman, Hughes, Morrey, Morrey, & An, 2001; Brechter & Powers, 2002). People with previous ACL reconstructions tend to display this same pattern of decreased knee extensor moment, although in such cases it could be due to factors other than pain (Ernst, Saliba, Diduch, Hurwitz, & Ball, 2000).
A study by Messier et al in 1992 observed a shorter stride length during level walking in participants with osteoarthritis compared to a healthy population. On the contrary, Hewett, Myer, & Ford (2006) observed that a larger stride length with the knee at or near full extension was the cause of the majority of non-contact ACL injuries. Altering stride length may be a way of compensating for pain in existing conditions such as OA or cause acute trauma leading to injuries such as ACL tears. Further investigation of stride length was included in this study to observe if

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