What parts of the knee are involved?

The patella (kneecap) is the moveable bone on the front of the knee. This unique bone is wrapped inside a tendon that connects the large muscles on the front of the thigh, the quadriceps muscles, to the tibia (shin bone.)

The large quadriceps muscle ends in a tendon that inserts into the tibial tubercle, a bony bump at the top of the tibia just below the patella. This is called the infrapatellar tendon or patellar tendon. Another tendon, the quadriceps tendon, attaches from the quadriceps muscle into the top of the patella. These two tendons, together with the patella, are called the quadriceps mechanism.

Tightening up the quadriceps muscles places a pull on the tendons of the quadriceps mechanism. This action causes the knee to straighten. The patella acts like a fulcrum to increase the force of the quadriceps muscles.

The long bones of the femur and the tibia act as level arms, placing force or load on the knee joint and surrounding soft tissues. The amount of load can be quite significant. For example, the joint reaction forces of the lower extremity (including the knee) are two to three times the body weight during walking and up to five times the body weight when running.

What should I expect as I recover?

After Surgery

Surgeons will generally have their patients take part in formal physiotherapy after patellar tendon surgery. More involved surgeries for patellar realignment or restorative procedures for tendon tissue require a delay before going to therapy and rehabilitation may be slower to allow the tendon to heal before too much strain is put on the knee.

Once clearance is given by your surgeon, our treatment at Skill Builders will be similar to the rehabilitation outlined above. If, however, during post-surgical rehabilitation your pain continues longer than it should or physiotherapy is not progressing as your physiotherapist would expect, we will ask you to follow-up with your surgeon to confirm that the tendon is tolerating the rehabilitation well and ensure that there are no complications that may be impeding your recovery.

Skill Builders provides services for physiotherapy in Barrie.

Portions of this document copyright MMG, LLC.