 Welcome to nursing school explain in this video on the assessment of the patella tendon reflex. This is one of the things that we sometimes assess as part of the neurologic assessment and the patella tendon evaluates the spine at l2 through 4 so at the lumbar spine level l2 through 4 and it causes the contraction of the patient's quadriceps or thigh muscle and then the leg extends and we can grade reflexes according to a scale and I have a separate video that explains that grading scale but in order to go ahead and assess the reflex we first find the patient's patella which is the kneecap right here and at the very edge the bottom edge of the patella is the patella tendon so we don't want to strike the patient's bone but we want to strike the tendon right underneath and we want to use our reflex hammer to do that and we want to use the pointy side of it so we'll find that patella tendon all right so there was one response and then we'll compare it with the other side find that correct spot again that patella tendon at the very bottom of that kneecap okay good so the response here was equal and I would say that was a normal response which is graded or determined to be a grade two which is a normal response thanks so much for watching this video on the patella tendon reflex evaluation also check out my other videos in the physical assessment playlist to get familiar with all the different assessment techniques thanks for watching