knee alignment | andreacollo

Hello everybody! Since the number of daily readers (and followers) of my blog is (surprisingly) increasing day after day (Thank you everybody!), I thought it could be useful to take stock of some important posts I wrote about the lower limb. Let’s start from the top -the hip- and go down to the bottom -the ankle-, with 9 posts that got many views and some funny comments 🙂

Obviously, since my PhD project is about a knee prosthesis, most of the posts (5 out of 9) are about the knee joint. But in general I tried to give an overall view of some interesting topics related to the biomechanics of the lower limb. Enjoy! 🙂

the Hip Joint: some hints

hammers, screws and Intramedullary nails

the Knee Bursae: some hints

the Meniscus: some hints

the Patella: some hints

Knee Alignment Conditions

Patellar Reflex

How many limbs do you actually perceive?

the Ankle Joint: some hints

The lower limb Mechanical Axis is defined by a line running through the centre of the hip joint to the centre of the ankle joint. This line should pass essentially through the centre of the knee joint.

The tangential distance of this line from the centre of the knee joint is referred to as the Mechanical Axis Deviation.

In a Varus knee, the axis passes through the knee medial compartment, while in a Valgus knee it crosses the knee lateral side.

Another key concept is the one of Anatomical Axis. The Anatomical Axis of a bone is represented by a line drawn down the centre of the medullary cavity of the bone.

In the femur, the mechanical and anatomical axes deviate whereas in the tibia the mechanical and anatomical axes are essentially represented by the same line.

The angle between the Anatomical Axis of the femur and the lower limb Mechanical Axis is normally 6° of Valgus.

source: this website