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before surgery Archives | Orthoped

Candidate for Total Knee Replacement?

Who decides whether you will have a total knee replacement operation? Curiously enough, you are the boss, you decide!

  • Your surgery depends principally on your willingness to comply with the long, demanding post-operative physical therapy and rehabilitation program that follow the surgery.
  • All other considerations (your age, disease character, etc.) are secondary.
  • The decision to have the operation of a damaged knee joint is a highly personal matter, and only you can make that decision, together with your surgeon.

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Minimally Invasive Total Hip Replacement

Minimally Invasive or Mini-incision Hip Replacement

There are several varieties of “minimally invasive” or “mini-incision” hip replacements being done. Some are the same as the normal operation, just through the use of specialized instruments the OS is able to work using a smaller incision, some do the normal procedure with an incision as small as 5 inches long. Another other type is done with instruments marketed by Zimmer Orthopedics, Inc. This involves two two-inch incisions and the procedure is done using flouroscopy. In this procedure the femoral head is broken into several peices so it can be removed through the smaller opening. (more…)

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Concerns before Total Knee surgery

1. Preoperative anxiety

You have had no previous experience with total knee replacement operation and it is only natural that you are anxious. Feeling of anxiety and depression before the total knee operation is usual for all patients. (Curiously enough, patients with previous experience, people with the other knee already operated on, are anxious too).
The preoperative anxiety disappears during the week after the operation when you have realized that the surgery has succeeded and all is well. Your preoperative anxiety will be replaced be feelings of relaxation and relief.
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Young for Total Knee Replacement

Curiously enough, high age is no obstacle for a total knee replacement, but low age is!

Studies demonstrated that:

  • only 25% surgeons were against total knee replacement operations in patients aged over 80 years, whereas
  • 65% surgeons were against total knee operations in patients younger than 50 years

Why?

Here are some answers: (more…)

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Surgical Issues

Choosing a Doctor

The best indicators of success of a surgeon is the number of surgeries performed per year, experience with the tools and device, and the number of hip replacement surgeries per year for the hospital. If a doctor is doing 50 hip replacements or resurfacings per year, he or she is doing at least one per week and is more likely to have experience with a wide variety of patients and surgical challenges and is more likely to be on top of the latest techniques and hardware than a surgeon doing fewer. (more…)

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