Acute Kneecap Dislocation
Kathy G is a young elite netballer. She had 5 years of minor problems with her right kneecap. She has had aching at the front of the knee especially after a hard game and squats are difficult. There has been successful treatment with physiotherapy, which helps but doesn’t cure her problem. Her pain has never been bad enough to see a knee surgeon. Her Mum had a bad knee and had an operation when she was young.

Then Kathy suffered an acute lateral patella dislocation of her right knee last year after a jump at netball and the knee hadn’t settled much in the 6 days since the injury. When we saw her she had a swollen and very painful knee and X-rays showed lateral patella subluxation badly on the injured side and slightly on the other side. We drained quite a lot of blood from the knee and told her to rest and very gently move the knee and saw her again 1 week later. However again the knee hadn’t settled much more and an arthroscopy was advised and performed a few days later.

This confirmed an acute lateral patella subluxation with minor damage to the undersurface of the kneecap. We smoothed this off and performed a lateral release using our specially developed Electrosurgical techniques.

Kathy made a good recovery over the next 6 to 8 weeks and then slowly returned to netball. She needed some intensive specialized physiotherapy. She has now played a whole season with only minor knee aches and feels 80% improved from how she was during those 5 years of knee problems. She has had no more dislocations. We are keeping on eye on her left knee but she hasn’t had any significant problems with this.