Are Kinematic and Kinetic Analyses Useful to Evaluate Patellofemoral Disorders in the Clinical Practice?

Current methods for the assessment of the outcome after anterior knee pain (AKP) or lateral patellar instability treatment have several limitations, for example their subjectivity. Therefore, new technologies are needed to objectivelyevaluate the outcomes of treatments for patellofemoral disorders and also to compare different methods of treatment.

The ideal situation would be to evaluate these patients during dynamic activities that trigger or aggravate the symptoms (i.e., pain and/or instability), under realistic loading conditions. We believe that this objective could be reached by means of kinematic andkinetic analysis. The aim of this paper is to analyze the two main reasons for consultation in patellofemoral disorders (i.e., pain and instability) in our daily clinical practice from a kinematic and kinetic point of view emphasizing on the clinical relevance of our biomechanical findings.