Arthrogryposis and Joint Contractures – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

arthrogryposis and joint contractures 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. What the word covers
2. The step they all share
3. The commonest picture
4. Under the microscope
5. Fingers and a family
6. Shaking hands with the mother
7. Looking at the tongue
8. No room to move
9. Looking at the face and skin
10. Asking about the next baby
11. Which joint comes first
12. One arm for each job
13. What school will be like
14. The hip that is out
15. Swollen thigh on day one
16. The baby who worries you
17. Will she walk
18. Getting worse, not better

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: A joint that becomes stiff during the first year of life, Reduced movement of the fetus, whatever the cause, Shoulders out, elbows bent, wrists straight, thumbs held wide, Fibres of normal size in a normal pattern, Contractures confined to the hands and feet, inherited dominantly, Ask her to walk on her heels, watching the feet clear the floor, A disorder of the muscle fibre itself, A malformation of the brain affecting movement, A faint red mark in the midline of the forehead, It is dominant, so each future pregnancy carries a one in two risk, The ankles are corrected before either knee or hip, Both arms made as flexible as possible whatever the strength, Learning is usually unaffected in this form, A harness works better when the knees are also fixed.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• Stiff joints at birth in two or more areas.
• Whatever stops the fetus moving fixes the joints.
• Shoulders in, elbows out, wrists in: amyoplasia.
• Muscle replaced by fat and fibrous tissue.
• Hands and feet only, running in the family: distal.
• A handshake that will not let go: ask about myotonia.

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.