Annie Lefley Case

Some important past research conducted by other people includes the creator of the project, Annie Lefley. Annie created this project to see how much tension is put on the patellar tendon when grande pile or a demi pile, two moves in ballet. She used the mechanical model, which resembled a knee, featuring the hip, the patella, the femur, and the tibia/fibula. Also included in the model, is a guitar string and a guitar tuning mechanism. These resemble the ligaments in the knee. Whenever you turn the tuning mechanism it will move the knee while putting tension on it as it bends.
Our projects history came from Annie Lefley’s science fair project, from 2007. She performed as a ballet and when she was doing her grande piles (in which the knee is
Andrew Waligora, M.D, he replaces knees and hips at GPOA, PT Tom McConnell, physical therapist at GPOA in Moon Township, MPT Dan Primm, major physical therapist at Greater Pittsburgh Physical therapy in Cranberry Township, and PTA Megan Brelloch, which is the physical therapist assistant to MPT Dan Primm. The first question that we asked Dr. Waligora was “how can anyone try to prevent knee pains, problems, or injuries, overall?” His answer was “doing simple exercises like, correct form while jumping and running. Also ACL, PCL, and MCL prevention classes help make the knee, hip, calf, and glute stronger. To help prevent interior knee injuries while doing specific exercises. Our next question to him was “what age would it be harmful to have a knee surgery performed at?” His response was “it depends on the injury/surgery procedure. If there was an open growth plate the procedure could not be done or done differently to try and avoid the growth plate area if the surgery was not elective due to an injury.” Our last question for Dr. Waligora was “what are the most common knee injuries in elders?” His answer was “Soft tissue injuries are very common. Older patients you usually won’t commonly have Meniscal or ACL tears. Quad and patella tendon injuries or degenerative meniscal tears, are common too. A direct fall/injury onto the patella or tibial platue can result in a