Adolescent Knee Pain Management

Abstract

The child or adolescent who presents with a painful knee is a routine challenge for most primary care providers. Knee pain is one of the most common reasons for referral from our local primary care providers to the orthopedic and sports medicine specialist. Complaints may be acute or long-standing, and making a diagnosis that responds to treatment for the patient with long-standing knee pain may be elusive. Careful consideration of the history, physical exam findings, and imaging study results can help sort through which patients can be managed in the primary care provider’s office and which ones should be referred to a pediatric and adolescent sports medicine specialist. Injuries to the knee occurred with an incidence of nearly one per player per year in a survey of English teenage soccer players, 1 and the prevalence of diffuse anterior knee pain has been reported in up to 40% of adolescents participating in sports. 2 Common acute knee injuries and chronic knee conditions that present in youth can be found in Table 1 (see page 123)