Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

developmental dysplasia of the hip in 18 board-style clinical cases with worked explanations. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong, with the guideline or textbook it follows named on the answer.

Board-style teaching questions for paediatricians and trainees preparing for paediatric board, MRCPCH and licensing examinations. Written from published guidelines and standard paediatric textbooks, with the source named on every answer.

The 18 cases, in order

1. Lie before birth
2. A movement felt
3. Why not a picture
4. The angle measured
5. Straps pulled tight
6. Trouble at the knee
7. A late examination
8. Uneven knee heights
9. Missed on both sides
10. The toddler who presents late
11. How she walks
12. What the family says
13. Which side is it
14. Looking far ahead
15. Checking the treatment
16. When to stop trying
17. An old remedy
18. Holding it still for months

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: Being a first child, which is the strongest factor on its own, A sudden clunk as the head slides back into the socket, The radiation dose is too high to justify in such a small baby, Fluid in the joint from infection, needing urgent drainage, Forced spreading beyond the comfortable range, which can starve the head, A dislocation of the knee itself, which needs a splint of its own, Asymmetrical thigh creases, which settle the question on their own, One buttock crease runs higher than the other on the back, Both hips are equally abnormal, so no asymmetry draws attention, A harness worn full time for twelve weeks, then gradual weaning, A one-sided dislocation, which shortens the leg on that side, The normal examination, which makes any history irrelevant, The left hip, which lies against the mother’s spine in the usual lie, No consequence at all, since a treated hip behaves normally.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• Breech late in pregnancy: scan the hips regardless.
• A clunk on opening out: the head has gone in.
• Baby hips are cartilage: scan them, do not film them.
• An alpha angle under sixty means a shallow roof.
• Never force a harness: wide spreading kills the head.
• No knee lift in a harness: take the harness off.

Work through the deck once for recognition, then again a week later to test yourself — each question gives the answer and explains why every other option fails.

More from this system: all MSK and orthopaedics case decks · pediatric reference values.