What’s new in hip replacement surgery?
Hip replacement surgery or total hip arthroplasty (THA) procedures continue to increase. The frequency of THA in the U.S. is projected to grow to 635,000 procedures per year by 2030, according to Drs. Mengnai Lee and Andrew Glassman in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.
Hip replacement surgery is a procedure in the which a doctor surgically removes a painful hip joint and replaces it with an artificial joint often made from metal, plastic or ceramic components. It is usually done when all other treatment options have failed to provide adequate pain relief. The procedure should relieve a painful hip joint, making walking easier, according to WebMD.com.
There are two main surgical approaches to hip replacement surgery. The first has been in use longer and is often referred to the traditional approach, or posterior hip replacement surgery.
The second type is called anterior hip replacement surgery. It is a newer and more technically complicated surgery but has some advantages over the traditional approach.
However, after numerous studies that measure the success of each approach to hip replacement surgery, neither approach is the clear winner.
To find out more information about the two different surgical approaches, visit www.arthritishealth.com/surgery/hip-surgery.
A new study from the Hospital for Special Surgery, published in the March 2019 edition of ScienceDaily,
says that low-risk hip replacement, using the posterior approach, can skip the standard hip precautions currently recommended for post-surgical recovery.
“The precautions can be limiting and cause fear in patients,” said Dr. Peter Sculco, the study’s lead author and an orthopedic surgeon specializing in hip and knee replacement.
For a posterior approach, standard precautions include not flexing your hip past 90 degrees, not internally rotating your hip more than 10 degrees, using an elevated seat cushion at all times and a grabber for anything that is on the ground and sleeping on your back for 6 weeks.
“The bottom line of the study is in recent years, we have learned more about interventions that matter after joint replacement and those that really don’t have efficacy,” he said. “In most patients, we got rid of powerful anticoagulants, for example, and we are moving toward a shorter stay and even outpatient arthroplasty (i.e. joint surgery) for total hip replacement.
“Minimizing precautions and simplifying the post-operative recovery is part of the larger simplification of surgery where we are using more selected resources and interventions for people, instead of blanketing everyone with the same kind of protocols.”
If you are exploring the possibility of hip replacement surgery or are in the process of scheduling surgery, always consult with your doctor before making any final decisions.
Hugh Bleemer is an outreach and admissions counselor at the Hickman Friends Senior Community of West Chester, a Quaker personal care home.Visit www. thehickman.org for more information.