The Hip

‘ The hip is designed to operate under loads exceeding 3x the body weight and to be controlled by muscles of enormous power and incomprehensibly accurate coordination. Anything that disturbs this intricate balance will cause the hip to work under abnormal conditions.’

   (Strange 1965)

Prevalence of hip injuries:

10% of all clinic visits are hip related. (McCrory and Bell 1999)

 

Arthroscopic Diagnosis of Pathologies (Villars 2003)  N=1170, Age 6-80 years:

 

 

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38% OA (arthritis) 

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19% Labral

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16% Osteochondral lesions

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5% Ligamentum Teres Injuries

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4% Synovitis

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4% Loose bodies

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14% Other

 

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Hip Loading:

 

Weight bear through roof of acetabulum

—Walking  3-4x body weight.

—Running 5 x body weight

—Turning (skiing) 7x body weight

—Stumble - single impact load 8 x body weight (Bergmann et al 1993)

—Repetitive Loading-chondral damage

(Krebs et al 1998; Pauwells 1976;Radin et al 1991)

 

Where do you feel pain when you have a hip problem:

 

 

ØGroin pain usually originates from the hip, in some cases the only symptom of hip pain may be in the knee (Adams and Hamblen 1995)

Ø

Buttock pain can be from the Sacroiliac Joint (SIJ) (Fortin et al, 1994) , hip (Wroblewski 1978) or lumbar spine (Cyriax,1978)

 

Diagnosis of hip problems is complex and difficult and as you can see from above there are many injuries that look like a hip problem. This is why it is important to be assessed by a Physiotherapist so that they can establish the problem and then devise the correct treatments and exercises for the problem.