Epidemiology of paediatric knee injuries

Jason Wong, Nicola Maffulli

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedingChapter

    Abstract

    The growing child shows amazing resilience to repetitive minor external physical forces. As part of the learning process, children experience fall after fall without major detriment during everyday play. Childhood injuries, although mainly trivial, do vary in their severity and can affect a child’s growth and development. The knees provide a point of impact as soon as a child learns to crawl. As locomotion progressively develops, children become competent in walking, and the emphasis from falling backward onto the well-cushioned gluteal region shifts to falling forward so that the predominant body region of impact with the ground is the knee. The knee is the most common site of injury in most childhood sports.1 By understanding how to preserve knee function at an early age, it may be possible to limit the effects of injuries in later life. Injuries in children are usually minor and self-limiting. In young children, musculoskeletal tissues are generally more pliable and absorb much of the impact from external forces. Through adolescence, bone stiffness increases, and bone becomes less resilient to impact.2 Childhood knee injuries and their occurrence can be divided into those acquired through recreational and competitive sport and those acquired through accidents, such as road trauma. There are areas of transition where injuries are acquired through contact with roads and streets as part of a recreational activity such as in roller sports or cycling
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationThe Pediatric and Adolescent Knee
    EditorsLyle J Micheli, Mininder S Kocher
    PublisherElsevier BV
    Chapter1
    Pages1-13
    Number of pages13
    ISBN (Electronic)9781437713053
    ISBN (Print)9780721603315
    Publication statusPublished - 17 Mar 2006

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