Abstract

Objective: To compare the effects of exercise program with and without hip muscles strengthening to improve pain & functional limitation in participants with patellafemoral dysfunction.
Methodology: It was a randomized controlled trial conducted from January to June 2017. The data were collected from The University Teaching Hospital, University of Lahore. A total of 30 participants with patellofemoral pain syndrome were randomly allocated into two groups by dice method. The Group-A (n=15) received hip muscles strengthening exercise along with conventional physiotherapy treatment whereas Group-B (n=15) received only conventional physiotherapy. Visual Analogue Scale and Kujala scale were used as outcome measure tools. 1st reading was taken before treatment and 2nd and 3rd readings were taken after third and sixth week of treatment.
Results: The improvement in the score of visual analog scale in Group-A was 4.67±0.97 and in Group-B was 3.00±1.25 (p=0.002). The improvement in the score of Kujala scale was 41.00±12.86 in Group-A and 30.06±13.62 in Group-B (p=0.03).
Conclusion: Hip muscles strengthening exercise along with conventional physiotherapy was more effective than conventional physiotherapy for patient with patellofemoral dysfunction.

Key words: Knee pain, hip strengthening, quadriceps strengthening, patella femoral syndrome.