Patterns of knee injury

Case contributed by Andrew Murphy
Diagnosis not applicable

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Diagram

Illustrations of common knee injury patterns including: 

  • valgus force 
  • varus force 
  • pivot-shift
  • dashboard injury 
  • hyperextension
Diagram

Illustrations of common knee injury patterns including: 

  • valgus force 
  • varus force 
  • pivot-shift
  • dashboard injury 
  • hyperextension

Case Discussion

Common mechanisms of injury one can expect to encounter:

  • valgus force
    • force is placed on the lateral side of the knee resulting in stress to the medial side, such as:
      • catching the back, inner portion of your skis as one tries to 'pizza' and in turn, placing significant stress to the medial side of the knee (my worst fear skiing)
  •  varus force
    • force is placed on the medial side of the knee thus placing stress on the lateral side
      • catching the front, outer portion of your skis as one tries to 'pizza' and in turn, placing significant stress to the medial side of the knee as it bends toward the lateral (also my worst fear skiing)
  • pivot shift
    • valgus load combined with external rotation of the tibia and/or internal rotation of the femur, such as: 
      • rapid deceleration and direction change whilst running 
  • dashboard injury 
    • the force applied to the anterior proximal tibia whilst the knee is flexed, such as:
      • passenger striking a dashboard in an MVA
  • hyperextension 
    • the direct force applied to the anterior aspect of the knee 
      • car vs knee
  • clip injury 
    • valgus impact on a flexed knee, such as:  
      • being tackled from the side in football 

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