Introduction

Patellofemoral Online Education has been created to present important information that will be helpful to physicians,scientists, caregivers and patients with a particular interest in patellofemoral disorders. All funding has been provided by the Patellofemoral Foundation (PFF), a non profit organization dedicated to education and research pertaining to patellofemoral disorders www.patellofemoral.org.

With the help of Peter Jokl (Professor of Orthopedic Surgery and Director of Sports Medicine at Yale) and website design and bibliographic support of librarians at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, the website obtains information from scientists with an understanding of patellofemoral dysfunction and will provide ongoing and updated information in an effort to help doctors, therapists, trainers, patients and athletes understand these problems better and thereby help them make informed decisions regarding patellofemoral care.

Patellofemoral pain can be perplexing at times and is disabling for many people, usually short term, but sometimes chronically and progressing to the point of causing permanent disability, loss of recreational sport participation, and loss of employment in more extreme cases. Some people with minimal findings on clinical examination have dramatic, disabling pain, confounding caregivers at all levels.

Patellofemoral instability (in which one experiences displacement of the patella) can also be incapacitating with apprehension and activities limitations commonly noted in those afflicted.

One important feature of this website is its free online access to John Fulkerson’s Disorders of the Patellofemoral Joint, thanks to the generosity of the original publisher, Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins and particularly the efforts of Eileen Wolfberg. The book will be updated as needed so that its information will be current at all times.

Major unrestricted grant contributions from Smith and Nephew Endoscopy, DJ Ortho, Arthrex, EBI, Kinamed, Bledsoe, Centre Albert Trillat (Lyon, France), Jack Farr, John Fulkerson, Ronald Grelsamer, and Hartman newspapers(Rosenberg, Texas) to the Patellofemoral Foundation have made this effort possible.

Editorial Board

Executive Editors:
Peter Jokl and John Fulkerson

PF Instabiilty:
Philippe Neyret and Anthony Schepsis

PF articular disease:
Jack Farr and Ronald Grelsamer

Pediatric PFJ:
Elizabeth Arendt

PF Non operative:
Chris Powers

PF Pain:
Vicente Sanchis Alfonso

Corporate issues and PR:
Eric Dahlinger and Eric Jania

Editors at large:
Jason Koh, Elvire Servien, Fredrik Almqvist, Ryosuke Kuroda, Nicola Maffulli, Christian Lattermann, Petri Silanpaa, Philip Schottle(past fellows of PFF)