What is Adolescent Anterior Knee Pain?
Anterior knee pain (AKP) is an umbrella term used to describe pain felt at the front of the knee or around the knee cap (patella). It can occur for a number of reasons but in under 18’s is most often related to growth and growth spurts.
A long bone such as your femur (thigh bone) grows in length at either end in regions called growth plates. Growth occurs when cartilage cells divide and increase in number in these growth plates. These new cartilage cells push older, larger cartilage cells towards the middle of a bone. Eventually, these older cartilage cells die and the space they occupied is replaced with bone. When a bone has reached its full size, its growth plates are converted into bone
