Realise this is an old thread but whilst I'm here thought I'd share my personal expereince of recurrent bilaterall patella dislocations. Sometimes they only subluxed in that the patella would 'click' laterally, then as I inevitably fell over it would pop back into place. Other times as I fell over my patella would stay in the dislocated position. Mostly I could re-locate it by quickly straightening my leg and putting my hand on the outside of the patella and pushing it back. Was always painful to do this, but much better than leaving it and a trip to A&E. Always tried to get it moving ASAP too rather than allowing it to be braced and using crutches which made it stiffer overall.

Initially treated with physiotherapy to strengthen my quads. However I found the stronger my quads the more serious the dislocations! It was as if the stronger quad muscle prevented me from re-locating the patella when it did give way, so I stopped these. Then I tried foot orthoses and learnt about the biomechanics of the leg - never letting my knee collpase inwards and not letting it move further than my toes. Helped to a small extent but they still occasionally dislocated if I did a twisting turn or a lunge (as you do often in sports). Braces didn't help, infact when they dislocatred whilst wearing a brace it was excruciating! The patella would pop under the brace and the brace would stop if popping pack into place again!

Finally ended up with bi-lateral tibial tubercle transfers and these have done the job pretty well, though there have been a few subluxations/incomplete dislocation since. However I have since found I do not use my 'posterior chain' when walking/running etc and have started to strengthen my hamstrings and glutes, since then I have hardly had any problems! From a completely novice laypersons viewpoint it seems that PT for knees seems to concentrate on quads with little attention paid to hamstrings and glutes, but in my case it was the weak hamstrings and glutes that contributed to the problem overall. My skyline patella x-rays were normal, my Q angle was normal and I can't help wondering that if my posterior chain issues had been identified earlier I may have avoided surgery. That said the surgery and the excercises I now do (lots fo horse-riding) have given me the confidence to run full pelt down a hill again!! ;-) The surgery was tough but I made sure I went to the pool every day for 90 minutes once the cast was removed, and within a week I had full RoM.

I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of PT's with experience of treating recurrent dislocation.