gms | German Medical Science

Objectives: Chondromalacia Patellae (CP) is the primary lesion of the patella femoral cartilage. Etiological factors for development of the disease are many amongst which are traumatic events, the form and position of the patellae, lower extremity alignment and/or muscle strength etc though not an exact relation of any of the predisposing factors have been established. Hence the aim of the study is to investigate the status of core muscle strength and proprioception of the patients with CP.

Methods: Ten patients with the diagnosis of CP for about 17.55±14.81 months, 35.20±11.79 years of age, 28.15±7.07 kg/cm² body mass index and 73.90±14.46 Kujala sore and ten healthy volunteers with no symptoms of patellofemoral cartilage with 28.90±6.84 years of age, 25.54±4.35 kg/cm² body mass index and 97.80±3.36 Kujala sore were engaged in the study. The functional status of knee joint was evaluated with Kujala patellofemoral scoring system, where as core muscle strength by prone bridge and side bridge tests and core proprioception by active proprioceptive repositioning test by using a digital goniometer. Statistical analyses were performed with IBM SPSS Statistics 21 Software and p values lower than 0.05 indicated significance.

Results and Conclusion: Groups similar for age, weight, height, body mass index, educational level and physical activity status were also found to be similar for core muscle strength and core proprioception values (p>0.05). In healthy group there have been found positive relations between prone bridge test and right (0.014) and left (0.002) bridge tests; right and left side bridge tests (0.003); 60° trunk flexion and 15° trunk left lateral flexion proprioceptive deficits (0.0046). In diseased group, there was a negative relation between Kujala score and body mass index (0.0028); 60° trunk flexion (0.046), 15 ° trunk left lateral flexion (0.018) and 15° trunk right lateral flexion (0.000) proprioceptive deficits whereas there was a positive relation between Kujala score and right (0.020) and left (0.029) side bridge tests. There is also found negative relation between IPAQ score and 60 ° trunk flexion proprioceptive deficit (0.021) and a positive relation between this score and left side bridge test (0.044).It is found that low body mass index, high physical activity level is associated with better core muscle strength and proprioception and functional knee scores. Because the small sample size of our study, we need to increase number of the participants to make our results valid and reliable.