Medial knee pain in a skier.   Considering an orthotic?  You had better know what you are doing! 

Can you guess why this gal has pain in both knees? Especially when skinning up a hill and skiing down? 

 Take a close look at the photos above and notice the orientation of her knee with her foot. Now look at you tuberosity and drop a line straight downward.  This line should pass through or slightly lateral to the second metatarsal shaft. Can you see how it falls to the outside of this? Perhaps even between the third and fourth metatarsal?

This gal has bilateral internal tibial torsion.  When she wears a standard foot bed (creates a level surface for the right for the foot) or an orthotic without appropriate posting, it pushes her knee outside of the saggital plane. This creates abnormal patellofemoral tracking  and appears to be a major contributor to her pain. 

 You will notice that we placed a valgus post under the orthotic(  a post that is canted from lateral to medial) which pushes her knee to the midline as the first ray descends.  You can see her alignment is better with her boots on and the changes. 

 The bottom line? Know your torsions and versions.  Posting a patient like this incorrectly could result in a meniscal disaster!

What would you do? This is what we did.

History:

This 7 year old girl is brought in by her mother because of knee misalignment while skiing, L > R. No history of trauma; normal term birth with no complications. No knee pain. Of incidental note, she is deaf in the left ear.

Exam findings:

She has bi-lat. external tibial torsion, left much worse than right (40 degrees transmallolear angle vs 22 degrees. for info on measuring torsions, click here). remember, you should be able to draw a line from the tibial tuberosity down through the 2nd metatarsal head. 

She has a 5mm anatomical leg length deficiency on the right (see top above left).

She has femoral antetorsion right side with very little external rotation, approximately 10 degrees,  internal rotation is in excess of 50.  Left side has normal femoral versions (for a review of femoral versions and torsions, click here).  See last 2 pictures which are full internal and external rotation respectively.

She has a mild uncompensated forefoot varus (cannot really see from the pictures, you will need to take our word for it) with a relatively cavus arch to her foot(see center and last picture on right.

Neurologically, she appeared to have integrity with respect to sensation, motor strength and deep tendon reflexes in the lower extremities.

Assessment:

Pathomechanical alignment as described.  Severe left external tibial torsion. MIld to moderate right. Femoral antetorsion right.

Plan:

We are going to build her a medium heel cup full length modified UCB orthotic inverting the cast bi-lat. left greater than right.  We gave her  balance and coordination exercises, heel walking, lift/spread/reach and one leg balancing. She will follow up for a dispense.  Her mother will try to get a better fitting ski boot as the one she has currently is two sizes too big. She will return for a dispense. She should consider wearing the orthotics in everyday footwear as well. We will do a follow up post in a few weeks. 

The Gait Guys. Teaching you something new in each and every post. Like this post? Tell and share it with a friend. Don’t like this post? Let us know!