Surgery Overview
Joint replacement involves surgery to replace
the ends of bones in a damaged joint. This surgery creates new joint
surfaces.
In knee replacement surgery, the ends of the damaged
thigh and lower leg (shin) bones and usually the kneecap are capped with
artificial surfaces. These surfaces are lined with metal and plastic. In most cases, doctors replace the
entire surface at the ends of the thigh and lower leg bones. Doctors usually secure knee joint
components to the bones with
cement.
Doctors are working on ways to replace just the damaged parts of the knee joint. This is sometimes called partial joint replacement. Unicompartmental replacement is one example of partial knee replacement. It replaces just the inner knee surfaces or the outer knee
surfaces, depending on where the damage is. Another partial replacement is called a patellofemoral replacement. In this surgery, the end of the thigh bone is replaced. Then an artificial surface is used to line the back of the kneecap.
In knee replacement surgery,
doctors remove the damaged cartilage and replace it with new joint surfaces in
a step-by-step process.
Joint changes caused by osteoarthritis may also stretch and damage the
ligaments that connect the thighbone to the lower leg bone. After surgery, the
artificial joint itself and the remaining ligaments around the joint usually
provide enough stability so that the damaged ligaments are not a
problem.
Your doctor may use general anesthesia. This means you'll be asleep during the surgery.
But sometimes doctors use regional anesthesia. This means you can't feel the area of the surgery. You will feel sleepy, but you will be awake.
Which type of anesthesia you get depends on your doctor and on your overall health. Your doctor might also ask what you prefer.
Your
doctor may recommend that you take antibiotics before and after the surgery to
reduce the risk of infection. If you need any major dental work, your doctor
may recommend that you have it done before the surgery. Infections can spread
from other parts of the body, such as the mouth, to the artificial joint and
cause a serious problem.
What To Expect After Surgery
Right after surgery
You will have intravenous (IV)
antibiotics for about a day after surgery. You will also receive medicines to
control pain, and perhaps medicines to prevent blood clots. It
is not unusual to have an upset stomach or feel constipated after surgery. Talk
with your doctor or nurse if you don't feel well.
When you wake up
from surgery, you will have a bandage on your knee. You will probably have a drain to
collect fluid and keep it from building up around your joint. You may have a
catheter. This is a small tube connected to your
bladder so you don't have to get out of bed to urinate. You may also have a
compression pump or compression stocking on your leg. This device squeezes your leg. It keeps
the blood circulating and helps prevent blood clots.
Your doctor may teach you to
do simple breathing exercises to help prevent congestion in your lungs while
your activity level is reduced. You may also learn to move your feet up and
down to flex your muscles and keep your blood circulating.
The first few days
You will probably still take some medicine. Over time, you will take less and less pain medicine. You
may keep taking medicines to prevent blood clots for at least 10 days after surgery.
Most people who have knee replacement surgery start to walk with a walker
or crutches the day of surgery or the next day. And most people can bear weight on the knee if it is
comfortable.
A physical therapist will help you gently bend and
straighten your knee. Your therapist will also begin some simple exercises to
help strengthen your leg muscles.
Rehabilitation (rehab) after a
knee replacement is intensive. The main goal of rehab is to allow you to bend
your knee at least 90 degrees. That much bend is enough for you to do daily activities, such as walk,
climb stairs, sit in and get up from chairs, and get in and out
of a car. Most people can bend the knee more than 90 degrees after
surgery. But one of the things that affects how much bend you get after
surgery is how much bend you had before surgery. To get the most benefit from
your surgery, it is very important that you take part in physical therapy. You will get this therapy both
while you are in the hospital and after you go home.
Most people go home within a few days to a week after surgery. Some
people who need more extensive rehab or those who don't have someone who can
help at home go to a specialized rehab center for more treatment.
Continued recovery
After you go home, watch the
surgery site and your general health. If you notice any redness or drainage
from your wound, tell your surgeon. You may also be advised to take your
temperature twice each day and to let your surgeon know if you have a fever
over 100.5°F (38.1°C).
Rehab continues after you go home from the hospital. You will get rehab until you
are able to function on your own and you get back as much strength
and range of motion in your knee as you can. You will keep working on
increasing the amount you can bend your knee and on building strength and
endurance. Total rehab after surgery will take several months.
You
will have an exercise program to follow when you go home, even if you are still
having physical therapy. You should also take a short walk several times each
day. If you notice any soreness, try a
cold pack on your knee. You might also cut back on your activity a bit. But don't
stop completely. Staying on your walking and exercise program will help you recover faster.
Your doctor may recommend that you ride a
stationary bike. It can help strengthen your leg muscles and improve your knee
bending. Swimming is also a good exercise after knee surgery. But don't go in the water until your
stitches or staples are removed.
Living with a knee replacement
Your doctor may
want to see you from time to time for several months or more to monitor your knee
replacement. Over time, you will be able to do most of the things you could do before surgery.
Controlling your weight will help your new knee joint last
longer.
Stay active to help
keep your strength, flexibility, and endurance. Your activities might include
walking, swimming (after your wound is completely healed), dancing, or golf. (If you golf, don't
wear shoes with spikes. And make sure to use a golf cart.) You could also try cycling on a stationary
bike or on level surfaces.
For at least 2 years after your
surgery, your doctor may want you to take antibiotics before dental work or any
invasive medical procedure. This is to help prevent infection around your knee
replacement. After 2 years, your doctor and dentist will decide whether you
still need to take antibiotics. Your general health and the state of your other
health conditions will help them decide.
Why It Is Done
Doctors recommend joint replacement
surgery when knee pain and loss of function become severe and when medicines and
other treatments no longer relieve pain. Your doctor will use X-rays to look at
the bones and cartilage in your knee to see if they are damaged. This helps the doctor
make sure that the pain isn't coming from somewhere else.
Doctors
may not recommend knee replacement for people who:
- Have poor general health and may not tolerate
anesthesia and surgery well.
- Have an active infection or are at
risk for infection.
- Have
osteoporosis (significant thinning of the
bones).
- Have severe weakness of the quadriceps muscles at the front
of the thigh.
- Have a knee that appears to bend backward when the
knee is fully extended (genu recurvatum), if this condition is due to muscle
weakness or paralysis.
- Are severely overweight. Replacement joints
may be more likely to fail in people who are very overweight.
Some doctors will recommend other types of surgery if
possible for younger people and especially for those who do strenuous work. A
younger or more active person is more likely than an older or less active
person to have an artificial knee joint wear out. People who are very
overweight are also more likely to have an artificial knee joint wear out from
the extra stress on the joint.
Doctors usually don't recommend
knee replacement surgery for people who have very high expectations for how
much they will be able to do with the artificial joint. (Examples are people who
expect to be able to run, ski, or do other activities that stress the knee
joint). The artificial knee allows a person to do ordinary daily activities
with less pain. It does not restore the same level of function that the person
had before the damage to the knee joint began.
How Well It Works
Most people have much less pain
after knee replacement surgery and are able to do many of their daily
activities more easily.
- The knee will not bend as far as it did before
you developed knee problems. But the surgery will allow you to stand and walk
for longer periods without pain.
- After surgery, you may be allowed
to resume activities such as golfing, riding a bike, swimming, walking for
exercise, dancing, or cross-country skiing (if you did these activities before
surgery).
- Your doctor may discourage you from running, playing
tennis, squatting, and doing other things that put a lot of stress on the
joint.
The younger you are when you have the surgery and the more
stress you put on the joint, the more likely it is that you will later
need a second surgery to replace the first artificial joint. Over time, the
components wear down or may loosen and need to be replaced.
Your
artificial joint should last longer if you are not overweight and you do not do
hard physical work or play sports that stress the joint. If you are older than
60 when you have joint replacement surgery, the artificial joint will probably
last the rest of your life.
People who have a partial knee
replacement may have less pain. But in one study they were not as satisfied as
people who had a total knee replacement.footnote 1
If you wait to have surgery until you have already lost a lot of your strength, flexibility, balance, endurance, and ability to be active, then after surgery you might have a harder time returning to your normal activities.
Risks
Risks from knee replacement surgery
include:
- Blood clots. People may get a blood clot in a
leg vein after knee joint replacement surgery. Blood clots can be dangerous if
they block blood flow from the leg back to the heart or move to the lungs.
Blood clots occur more often in older people, people who are very
overweight, people who have had blood clots before, and people who have
cancer.
- Infection in the surgical wound or in the joint. Infection is rare in people who are otherwise healthy.
Some people are at higher
risk of infection after any surgery. This includes people who have other health problems, such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis,
or chronic liver disease, and people who take corticosteroids. Most wound infections are
treated with antibiotics. Infections deep in the joint may need more
surgery. And in some cases the doctor must remove the artificial joint.
- Nerve injury. In rare cases, a nerve may be injured
around the site of the surgery. It is more common (but still unusual) if the
surgeon is also correcting problems in the joint. A nerve injury may cause
tingling, numbness, or trouble moving a muscle. These injuries usually get
better over time. In some cases they may go away completely.
- Problems with wound healing. Wound healing problems
are more common in people who take corticosteroids or who have diseases that
affect the immune system, such as rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes.
- Lack of good range of motion. How much you can bend
your knee after surgery depends a lot on how much you could bend your knee
before surgery. Some people are not able to bend their knee far enough to allow
them to do their regular daily activities, even after several weeks of
recovery. If this happens, the doctor may give you a medicine to relax your
muscles and then gently force your knee to bend further. This may loosen
tissues around the joint that are preventing you from bending it.
- Dislocation of the kneecap (patella). This is an
uncommon complication of knee replacement surgery. If this happens, the kneecap
may move to one side of the knee, and it will "pop" back when you bend your
knee. This may not be painful, but it may make the knee feel unstable, and it
may be uncomfortable. Dislocation of the kneecap interferes with the way your
thigh muscles (quadriceps) work. It usually needs to be treated with
surgery. In some cases, the knee replacement surgery must be completely redone
if the dislocation is caused by a problem with the way the components in the
knee line up.
- Fracture of the kneecap (patella). The kneecap
could fracture either because of a fall or while you are using the knee
normally. This complication is very uncommon. It may be seen in people who can
bend the knee almost normally and can easily climb stairs and get up from
chairs. Doctors usually can treat a fractured kneecap without surgery.
- Instability in the joint. The knee may be unstable
or wobbly if the replacement components are not properly aligned. You may need
a second surgery to align the components correctly so that your knee is
stable.
- The usual risks of general anesthesia. Risks of any surgery
are higher in people who have had a recent heart attack and those who have
long-term (chronic) lung, liver, kidney, or heart disease.
What To Think About
Exercise (swimming,
walking) is important to your general well-being and muscle strength. Talk
with your doctor about what type of exercise is best for you.
You may
donate your own blood to use during surgery if needed. This is called
autologous blood donation. If you choose to do this, start the donation several
weeks before the surgery. You will have more time to donate enough blood and
rebuild your blood volume before surgery.
If you need more than
one joint replacement surgery, such as both knees or a knee and a hip, talk to your doctor about
guidelines that may help you and your doctor
decide in which order to do the surgeries.
- Arthritis: Should I Have Knee Replacement Surgery?
Complete the surgery information form (PDF)(What is a PDF document?) to help you prepare for this surgery.
References
Citations
- Sibanda N, et al. (2008). Revision rates after primary hip and knee replacement in England between 2003 and 2006. Public Library of Science Medicine, 5(9): 1398-1408.
Other Works Consulted
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (2007). Activities after a knee replacement. Available online: http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00357.
- Rethman MP, et al. (2012). Prevention of Orthopaedic Implant Infection in Patients Undergoing Dental Procedures: Executive Summary on the AAOS/ADA Clinical Practice Guideline. Available online: http://www.aaos.org/research/guidelines/PUDP/dental_guideline.asp.
- Skou ST, et al. (2015). A randomized, controlled trial of total knee replacement. New England Journal of Medicine, 373(17): 1597-1606. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1505467. Accessed December 11, 2015.
Credits
ByHealthwise Staff
Primary Medical ReviewerAnne C. Poinier, MD - Internal Medicine
E. Gregory Thompson, MD - Internal Medicine
Adam Husney, MD - Family Medicine
Kathleen Romito, MD - Family Medicine
Specialist Medical ReviewerKenneth J. Koval, MD - Orthopedic Surgery, Orthopedic Trauma
David Bardana, MD, FRCSC - Orthopedic Surgery, Sports Medicine
Current as ofMarch 21, 2017