Physiotherapy

Most patients with patella dislocation start to feel better within a few hours of the relocation. However,
your rehabilitation will take at least 8 to 12 weeks to successfully rehabilitate and decrease your chance
of a recurrent dislocation.

Your physiotherapy treatment will aim to:

 Reduce pain and inflammation.

 Protect the patella via taping or a patella alignment brace. eg patella brace
 Normalise joint range of motion.

 Strengthen your knee: esp quadriceps (esp VMO).

 Strengthen your lower limb: calves, hip and pelvis muscles.

 Improve patellofemoral (knee cap) alignment.

 Normalise your muscle and retinaculum lengths.

 Improve your proprioception, agility and balance.

 Improve your knee motion technique and function eg walking, running, squatting, hopping and landing.

 Minimise your chance of re-dislocation.

Goals:

 Improve function
 Prevent further dislocation:
 Taping: Lateral reinforcement will reduce the movement of the patella (to
prevent dislocation) [9]

Physiotherapy modalities include: [9][10][26]

 Prevention of re-dislocation:
 Taping: Lateral reinforcement will reduce the movement of the patella (to
prevent dislocation) [9]
 Bracing
 Reassurance and behavioural modification [27]
 Improve range of motion:
 Manual therapy knee
 Knee mobilisations
 Combination therapy
 Strengthening exercises:
 Quadriceps[28], hamstrings, adductors, hip and lower abdomen
 Closed kinetic chain exercises are recommended
 Stretching:
 Improve flexibility of hamstrings and quadriceps
 Proprioception: Improve stability of the knee