For patients with lateral patellar compression syndrome after surgery, to compare the effect of increasing the vastus medialis exercise and pushing the patella inward in the postoperative rehabilitation with the routine rehabilitation program.

A retrospective analysis was conducted on 47 patients with lateral patellar compression syndrome who underwent arthroscopic release of the lateral retinaculum from August 2020 to July 2023. There were 15 males and 32 females with an average age of (46.07± 3.81) years. The patients were divided into two groups, 23 cases in the conventional group and 24 cases in the experimental group. The routine group carried out the routine postoperative rehabilitation process of lower limbs, and the experimental group added the special rehabilitation steps of raising legs straight in the lateral position, sitting with legs holding the ball, and pushing the patella inward.

Anova of repeated measurement design was performed before surgery, 3 months after surgery, 6 months after surgery and 12 months after surgery between the conventional group and the experimental group. There were statistically significant differences in Lysholm, IKDC2000 and Kujala scores between the two groups (P<0.05), and there were statistically significant differences at different time points (P=0.000). There was an interaction between the groups and time points (P<0.05), and the difference between the two groups was statistically significant at each time point except before surgery (P<0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in VAS score between the two groups, there was statistically significant difference between different time points (P=0.000), there was no interaction between the groups and time points, and there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups at each time point. At 3, 6 and 12 months after operation, the muscle atrophy rate of the experimental group was lower than that of the conventional group, and the subjective satisfaction of the experimental group was higher than that of the conventional group. The overall rehabilitation effect of the experimental group was better than that of the conventional group.

In the postoperative patients with lateral patellar compression syndrome, increasing the exercise of the vastus medialis and internal push of the patella in the rehabilitation process can improve the knee function and subjective satisfaction.