Jumper's knee

Jumper's knee is a painful, chronic, degenerative overuse disease of the patellar tendon. Colloquially it is also called jumper's knee. Since maximum tensile stress on the patellar tendon occurs particularly in jumping sports, sports such as handball, volleyball, basketball, long jump or high jump are frequent triggers for patellar tendon syndrome. However, a jumper's knee is also found more frequently in other sports, such as football, cycling, weightlifting, jogging on hard surfaces or tennis.

Patients with patellar tendinitis report pain in the area of the patella tip depending on the load. Depending on the stage of the disease, the pain can be present at the beginning of the load and disappear again after the warm-up phase, while it reoccurs in the phase after the load. In the advanced stage, the pain remains throughout the entire load. In very advanced cases, the patella insertion hurts not only during sporting activities but also permanently in everyday life, for example when climbing stairs. Some patients describe a stab-like pain at certain angular conditions of the knee joint under load.

The pain after and during physical or sporting activity can be divided into 4 degrees of severity, from mild to severe:

Grade 1: Pain only after exercise
Grade 2: Pain before and after exercise, but less after warming up
Grade 3: Pain during activity that prevents training or peak performance
Grade 4: Pain during daily activities, which may become wors

Treatment