Introduction: Patellar tendinopathy is an overuse injury, common in sports with many jumps such as basketball and volleyball. It occurs as a result of repeated overloading of the knee extension mechanism. The treatment of patellar tendinopathy is surgical or conservative (e.g. orthotic care). Although there is no established treatment protocol, based on the studies in this area, eccentric exercise is most often recommended. Purpose: The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis was to present the orthotic management of patients with patellar tendinopathy based on literature and an overview of the products available on the market. Methods: A literature search was performed using the databases PubMed and Google Scholar using the following search string: »(patelarna tendinopatija ALI skakalno koleno) IN (opornica ALI ortoza)« in Slovenian and »(patellar tendinopathy OR jumper's knee) AND (orthosis OR brace OR strap)« in English. A review of orthoses available on the market was conducted using the Google search engine, using a combination of keywords in Slovenian and English. Results: In our research paper we included 8 studies in which the authors described the orthotic management of patellar tendinopathy. In 6 of the studies they found that the use of a patellar strap relieves knee pain. Furthermore, they found that a patellar strap reduces patellar tendon strain, ground reaction force, hip internal rotation, knee adduction and ankle inversion, alters the activation of the vastus lateralis muscle, and does not affect jumping parameters and knee joint proprioception. In addition to the most commonly used patellar strap, we found a double patellar strap and a more complex knee orthosis. Discussion and conclusion: The use of a patellar strap has a positive effect on immediate reduction of knee pain. We have not found any suitable studies on long-term effects of a patellar strap. Due to the biomechanical changes, we assume that the use of a patellar strap could have positive long-term effects. The main limitations of the studies we included were small samples and the inclusion of only one age group or sex. When examining the existing orthoses, we found that there are three different types of orthoses available, but only the patellar strap was used in the studies. We found that the literature on this particular topic is very limited and that further research is needed to determine long-term effects of a patellar strap.
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