Sandie S-R
Well-Known Member
Found this info today, and my knees did a happy dance!! Thank goodness someone is actually studying this issue. Hopefully one day soon those of us who need knee replacements will be allowed to have them.
Print this out for use at your Doctors/Ortho visits.
Print this out for use at your Doctors/Ortho visits.
SOURCE: Science Daily
(July 28, 2008) — There is no justification for denying obese
patients knee replacement surgery: They benefit almost as much as
anyone else from the procedure, concludes a small study published
ahead of print in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
Around 55,000 knee replacements are performed every year in England
to relieve the pain and disability of knee osteoarthritis.
But in some parts of the country the surgery is offered only to
patients who are not clinically obese (body mass index (BMI) below
30 kg/m2), on the grounds that obesity is itself a risk factor for
knee osteoarthritis.
The research team monitored the progress of 325 people over the age
of 45 for around six years after they had had knee replacement
surgery.
Their progress was compared with that of 363 general practice
patients, matched for age and sex, who had not had knee replacements.
At the start and end of the study, all participants completed a
validated questionnaire designed to assess their mobility, mental
health and wellbeing (vitality).
To begin with, the patients said they had significantly worse
mobility than those in the comparison group, scoring an average of
20 compared with 89.
By the end of the study, mobility in the patients had increased by
an average of 6 points, while that in the comparison group had
fallen by 14.
Mental health scores, which were similar at the outset, improved in
both groups, but while wellbeing fell among both groups, the fall
was greater among the patients who had had surgery.
When the researchers restricted their analysis to participants who
were obese, the improvements persisted, and BMI did not appear to be
a significant factor in this.
But there was a stark contrast in mobility among those who had and
had not had the surgery.
Mobility score rose three points among those who had had surgery,
but fell 36 points among those who had not had a knee replacement.
And among those over the age of 75 who had not had the surgery,
mobility score fell 40 points.
"The long term improvement in physical function that we observed in
patients who have undergone TKA [knee replacement surgery] is
striking when set against the decline that occurred in [the
comparison group]," say the authors.
"These benefits extend to patients [who are obese] and, provided
appropriate selection criteria are applied with regard to fitness
for surgery, there seems no justification for withholding [knee
replacement surgery] from patients who are obese," they conclude.
Adapted from materials provided by BMJ-British Medical Journal, via
EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080723201231.htm
