• Michael S Rathleff, Afshin Samani, Jens L Olesen, Ewa M Roos, Sten Rasmussen, and Pascal Madeleine.
• SMI, Department of Health Science and Technology, Faculty of Medicine, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark; Orthopaedic Surgery Research Unit, Aalborg University Hospital, Denmark. Electronic address: misr@hst.aau.dk.
• Clin Biomech (Bristol, Avon). 2016 May 1; 34: 22-9.

BackgroundFemale adolescents with patellofemoral pain are characterized by altered neuromuscular knee control and reduced maximal quadriceps torque. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether exercise therapy and patient education are associated with larger improvements in neuromuscular knee control and maximal quadriceps torque compared with patient education alone.MethodsThis is an ancillary analysis of a cluster randomized controlled trial investigating the effect of patient education and exercise therapy on self-reported recovery in 121 adolescents with patellofemoral pain. A random subsample of 57 female adolescents was included and tested at baseline and after 3months. Neuromuscular control of the knee was quantified as the complexity of surface electromyography of the vastus lateralis and vastus medialis during stair descent. Secondary outcomes were complexity of knee flexion/extension kinematics and maximal quadriceps torque.FindingsThere was an 8-15% greater decrease in the complexity of surface electromyography suggesting an improvement in neuromuscular knee control among those randomized to exercise therapy (0.08InterpretationFemale adolescents randomized to patient education and exercise therapy had a significantly larger increase in maximal quadriceps torque and greater improvement in neuromuscular knee control during stair descent than those receiving patient education alone. This suggest that exercise therapy has an effect not only on self-reported outcome measures but also on objective measures of thigh muscle function in female adolescents with patellofemoral pain.Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

20 keywords...

hide…