What is a knee replacement?
Knee replacement is surgery that restores the smooth surfaces on the ends of your knee bones. You might need a knee replacement if you severely damage your knee to the point where it’s impossible to repair the joint. However, knee replacement is most often a solution for advanced arthritis.
Arthritis takes many forms, all of which cause chronic or recurring joint pain. The kind of arthritis that affects most patients requiring knee replacement is osteoarthritis, which results from years of wear-and-tear on your joints.
When you have osteoarthritis, the slippery surfaces in your joints (made of cartilage) wear down, exposing raw bone. The bones, no longer able to slide over each other painlessly, create friction and inflammation. The result is steadily worsening joint pain, stiffness, and loss of function.
Knee replacement surgery removes these diseased portions of the joint and fits artificial parts, called prosthetics, in their place.
When would I need to consider knee replacement?
Arthritis typically progresses slowly, so conservative treatments can often keep you mobile for many years. Hudson Valley Bone & Joint Surgeons’ interventional pain specialists provide a range of effective therapies for arthritis, including:
- Medication
- Gel injections
- Physical therapy
- Regenerative medicine injections
- Steroid injections
After a while, some patients find that their symptoms no longer respond to these therapies. If this happens to you and you’re experiencing severe pain and dysfunction, it’s time to consider knee replacement surgery.
What kind of knee replacement might I need?
Hudson Valley Bone & Joint Surgeons offers several kinds of knee replacement, including:
Total knee replacement
Total knee replacement removes the ends of your femur (thigh bone) and tibia (shinbone). These bones make up your knee. The surgery replaces them with highly polished metal and plastic caps permanently secured with bone cement. The kneecap (patella) might need resurfacing or replacing as well.
Partial knee replacement
Sometimes, only one of the knee bones needs replacing if the other two are healthy and pain-free. Partial knee replacement (also called unicompartmental knee replacement) involves resurfacing the damaged area while preserving your natural joint structure as much as possible.
How is knee replacement surgery done?
The knee replacement technique your Hudson Valley Bone & Joint Surgeons provider uses will depend on the surgery you need and your age, weight, and general health.
In many cases, it’s possible to complete knee replacement surgery using minimally invasive arthroscopic techniques rather than open surgery. The team offers the Zimmer Biomet® MIS Mini-Incision™ total knee replacement, which uses modified techniques and instruments that require much smaller incisions.
Your surgeon can also use advanced robotic-assisted technology to plan and perform knee replacement surgery.
Call Hudson Valley Bone & Joint Surgeons, LLP today or book an appointment online to discuss the available choices for your knee replacement surgery.
