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Air guitarist’s knee — a new musical injury

Robert J Douglas and Jason Ward
Med J Aust 2010; 193 (11): . || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2010.tb04124.x
Published online: 6 December 2010

Rock music may be bad for your knees as well as your ears

In May 2009, a 17-year-old woman in the dance floor audience at a rock concert was performing “air guitar” — a form of dance and movement in which a performer mimes to rock or heavy metal guitar music, commonly requiring enthusiastic jumping and leaping about a “stage”. While performing a manoeuvre involving a jump into the air, she landed awkwardly on her right leg. She noted immediate intense right knee pain with obvious patellar deformity. An ambulance was called, and a dislocation of the right patella was diagnosed. Under methoxyflurane inhalation, ambulance officers reduced the dislocation by manoeuvring the knee into full extension.


  • 1 Emergency Department, Ashford Community Hospital, Adelaide, SA.
  • 2 Orthopaedics SA, Adelaide, SA.


Correspondence: rabs01@hotmail.com

Acknowledgements: 

We thank Dr Tonia Mezzini for her assistance in preparing the manuscript, and our patient for allowing us to publish the case details and intraoperative image.

Competing interests:

None identified.

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