Patellar tendon advancement for the treatment of crouch gait in patients with cerebral palsy

Abstract

Crouch gait is a frequent gait pathology in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Patellar tendon advancement (PTA) is a typical surgery among single-event multilevel surgery (SEMLS) for the treatment of crouch gait and performed to enhance the knee joint kinematics and kinetics Patella position had a considerable effect on the torque-producing capacity of the quadriceps and hence, patellar height is a typical metric to assess the influence of PTA on knee function. Patellar height can be assessed by using several radiographic imaging methods. How ever, in the literature, there is no consensus on objective quantification of the patellar height In our study, we aimed to i) objectively quantify the patella position using X-ray data and musculoskeletal modeling and ii) monitor the effect of PTA in combination with SEMLS on the knee kinematics of patients with CP and crouch gait.