RNS: Knee replacement surgery, June 2008
TIME: 2:53
URL: http://www2.med.umich.edu/prmc/media/newsroom/details.cfm?ID=333
U-M Health Minute: Today’s top health issues and medical research
Big boom in boomer knee replacement surgeries
U-M experts say huge growth in need far outpaces availability of surgeons
Suggested lead: There’s a big boom in baby boomers getting knee replacement surgery. But will there be enough surgeons in a few years to meet the growing demand? Here’s Andi McDonnell with more.
John Birko’s knee felt like that of an 80-year-old man. It was painful, and severely limited his day-to-day activities. The problem was, John was not 80. In fact, at 49, he was far from it.
That’s why John, like so many other baby boomers today, decided to get knee replacement surgery. And, he says, he’s never felt better.
“Having the knee replacement surgery made an extra, extraordinary difference. The very next day when I really came around from the surgery, even though it’s a very invasive surgery, I felt terrific and I realized later that the whole reason was I was on medications that were relieving most of my discomfort but I just had not been out of pain for so long I forgot what it felt like to not be in pain and I was on top of the world.”
Only a few years ago, between 300,000 and 350,000 knee replacement surgeries were being done. Today, that number has risen to a staggering 500,000. And 10 years from now, experts estimate there could be as many as 3.2 million annual knee replacement surgeries.
While knee replacement surgery does have a positive impact on a patient’s quality of life, experts in the field worry that the demand for new knees will far outpace the availability of surgeons trained to perform the procedure.
Dr. J. David Blaha (M.D.), an orthopaedic surgeon at the University of Michigan Health System, explains…
“In a recent study done trying to look at the trend of joint replacement, it appears that although the orthopedic specialists who do joint replacement are going to increase by about 2 percent, the need for the orthopedic surgeons is going to increase by about 500 percent.”
The reason for the increase? Baby boomers want to maintain an active lifestyle. Previously, Blaha says, knee replacement surgeries were reserved for very old patients who were severely crippled by osteoarthritis.
But younger patients like Birko – who tore his ACL and cartilage when he was a teenager and later injured his knee again while playing sports – are experiencing an earlier onset of osteoarthritis that is affecting their daily lives.
Blaha tells us…
“Today, especially with the baby boomer population, function is critically important. So, I think it is a quality of life issue in that in the older days we were willing to give older people the joint replacement to keep them from becoming crippled whereas today, especially the baby boom population, wants to remain functional at whatever cost.”
And for Birko, having knee replacement surgery changed his life, he says.
“Since I’ve had the knee replacement I can live the life that I want to live. I don’t find myself negotiating around with things that I need to do with the things that I want to do. I can do everything that I really want to do.”
Andi McDonnell, U-M Health System News.
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