Thanks for your explanation. I failed my PT exam because from my research of journal articles I didn’t really believe in or understand the whole tightness of iliopsoas being caused by OA either, and didn’t believe that stretching the iliopsoas is the cure-all for hip OA, eg. It really depends on the individual patient, and factors such as whether they have lumbar hyper extension or flexion / anterior or posterior pelvic tilt that could affect the iliopsoas muscle too since it has attachment sites at the lumbar spine. I even found in some sources which say that in some instances stretching the iliopsoas muscle could do more harm than good.

But my examiner was prompting me to say that in the exam. He reasoned that there is reduced hip extension during the terminal stance of gait due to tight hip flexors in patients with OA.

I’m unsure what to do now? In my lectures and labs we did the modified Thomas test to check for tight iliopsoas, wouldn’t that be a good indicator of tight iliopsoas? And once that test is used to confirm tight iliopsoas, wouldn’t stretching of iliopsoas help?

I’m really confused because the research I did by reading journal articles showed that the iliopsoas muscles tends to be weak rather than tight?

Thank you in advance :)