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News and Publications New company enters market to use vitamin E to extend life of hip, knee implants Vitamin E isn't an antioxidant just for your skin and nails anymore — it's expanding to joint implants. Zimmer, a company also based in Warsaw, is seeking FDA approval to offer its own version. Can surgery help you stay in the game? Demand for knee and hip replacement rises– Arthritic knee crimping your tennis game? Toss it out and get a new one. Demand for joint replacement surgery, once confined largely to patients well past retirement age, has been growing rapidly among a class of people doctors have dubbed the “young actives’’ - those in the 45 to 64 age group who are determined to stay fit. Marco lecture proves robotic knee replacement surgery has leg up on traditional methods Buechel, an orthopedic surgeon at Physicians Regional Healthcare System, is on the cutting edge of robotic joint replacement, having performed 439 robotic knee surgeries or about 5 percent of all such surgeries worldwide. He also teaches other doctors the technique. Errors occur with traditional partial knee replacements, Buechel said, because doctors are not as likely to place implants into the knee joint with complete accuracy. The robotic system pinpoints alignments to within one millimeter and one degree, he asserted. New method will increase likelihood of success in cartilage grafting procedures For years, doctors have been able to treat defects in joint cartilage by grafting cartilage donated from cadavers into patients' bad joints. Using current methods, donated cartilage can be stored for 28 days for a transplant before the tissue becomes too degraded to transplant into a patient. Now, researchers from the University of Missouri have found a way to store donated cartilage more than twice as long. Some seniors at greater risk of falls and hip fractures due to undiagnosed neurological disorders Hip fractures are a common cause of morbidity and mortality in elderly patients. Cervical myelopathy is a common neurological condition that can diminish balance and coordination. Undiagnosed neurological disorders may predispose patients to falls and fractures. Screening for cervical myelopathy should be standard care for all hip fracture patients, to reduce the risk for additional falls and fractures. Hip dysplasia can be reliably diagnosed by ultrasound at 6 months Developmental dislocation (dysplasia) of the hip (DDH) is a common congenital condition in which a child's upper thighbone is dislocated from the hip socket. The condition can be present at birth or develop during a child's first year of life. Plain radiography (X-rays) has long been the gold standard screening modality for this condition in 6-month-old children, despite concerns over exposing very young children to ionizing radiation. Ultrasound provided good quality images with 100 percent diagnostic correlation to the X-rays in all patients. Ultrasound is a reliable alternative imaging method to X-rays for DDH screening in 5-to-7 month old children. Follow-up online support after joint replacement surgery benefits patients Patients who have had total joint replacement (TJR) are expected to return to their physician's office or clinic regularly for routine follow-up care. Web-based follow-up can provide significant time and cost savings to TKR patients without complications, and make the physician's office more accessible to new patients, patients awaiting surgery, and/or patients with post-surgical complications. Arthritic knees, but not hips, have robust repair response Researchers at Duke University Medical Center used new tools they developed to analyze knees and hips and discovered that osteoarthritic knee joints are in a constant state of repair, while hip joints are not. "This suggests the knee has capacity for repair we didn't know about and the main treatment strategy probably would need to focus on turning off the breakdown of knee tissue," said Virginia Kraus, MD, PhD, professor of Rheumatology and Immunology at Duke. "I was hugely surprised to find this." Perhaps the natural repair response would be sufficient to lead to a reversal or halting of the disease process in the knee if the joint breakdown could be halted, Kraus said. Knee replacement may lower a patient's risk for mortality and heart failure New research presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) highlights the benefits of total knee replacement (TKR) in elderly patients with osteoarthritis, including a lower probability of heart failure and mortality. There were significant positives in the osteoarthritis TKR group: the risk of mortality was half that of the non-TKR group and the congestive heart failure rate also was lower, at three, five and seven years after surgery. There was no difference in diabetes rates among both groups. Depression rates were slightly higher in the TKR group during the first three years after surgery, though there was no difference at five and seven years. Getting a New Knee or Hip? Do it Right the First Time THERE is nothing like a new hip or knee to put the spring back in your step. Patients receiving joint implants often are able to resume many of the physical activities they love, even those as vigorous as tennis and hiking. No wonder, then, that joint replacement is growing in popularity. |
