Anterior Knee Pain

Aaron Mares, MD

So a patient may develop anterior knee pain for a multitude of reasons. They may have some muscle imbalance, inflexibility, they could be knock kneed or flat foot. For some reason these conditions seem to go along with young adolescent individuals, tend to have a propensity for female athletes and sometimes it’s just too much, too hard, too long.

Injury Prevention

Some steps that an athlete may take to prevent developing anterior knee pain would include listening to their own body. If an athlete is sore, fatigued or just not – their exercise is just not enjoyable then they need to back off or change their routine. They need to understand the level of athlete that they are and adjust accordingly.

Treatment Options

So there are several treatment options for these athletes. Sometimes you just need to back off a little bit, and then progress when tolerated. You need to work on strength and flexibility about the knee including stretching of the hip flexors, ham string and IT band, also working on the strength of the quadriceps. We’ll ice to decrease inflammation along with taking anti-inflammatories. If need be we’ll use bracing and orthotics.

Spectrum of Care

At UPMC Center for Sports Medicine we have world class physicians, we have athletic trainers that can show an individual a home exercise program, we have bracing onsite, physical therapy that can take care of your everyday needs and even individuals that can work with orthotics and do gait analysis. We take care of athletes from all over the world and this is what we do.