Rehabilitation approaches to anterior knee pain among runners: A scoping review.
Siyabonga H Kunene, Nomathemba P Taukobong, Serela Ramklass
PMID 32161824WHAT IT FOUND
Runner anterior knee pain non-surgical rehabilitation literature centres on education, gait retraining, hip exercises, foot orthoses and multimodal programmes.
It maps these approaches but does not establish which works best.
Key findings
01The review mapped five non-surgical, non-pharmaceutical rehabilitation themes for runners with anterior knee pain: education, gait retraining, exercise, foot orthosis and multimodal rehabilitation.
02Education alone was reported as efficient as education combined with exercise or gait retraining in reducing anterior knee pain symptoms and functional limitations.
03The multimodal programme described in an included study combined lower limb and core strengthening, motor control exercises, advice on running gait, symptom management and a training regimen, and reported improvement in pain and function without improvement in lower limb strength.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The review maps the range of approaches but does not appraise study quality or test which approach works best. Only 13 studies were included, and they used different designs and participant groups, so the evidence base is narrow and uneven. The included studies contain small observational studies, case reports and case series, which describe what happened in particular groups rather than proving an effect. No studies from Africa or South Africa were found, so the findings may not fit the local runner population and resource settings. When several treatments are delivered together, such as the multimodal programme, the contribution of any single component cannot be separated.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this review as proof that education, gait retraining, exercises or orthoses work for anterior knee pain. It maps studies of different designs and does not compare them to show which treatment is effective.