When a hip or a knee fails you, you may feel like you will be in surgery and rehab until the end of time. Fortunately, there are several newer advances in hip and knee surgeries that can help you get back on your feet and/or stay on your feet. While your situation is rather common for most older adults, you have more choices than your parents did when they had hip or knee replacement surgery over a few decades ago. The newer options you do have are faster, better and more comfortable when it comes to replacing a hip or part of your knee.

Traditional Surgery

Traditional surgery for a complete hip replacement or a total knee replacement means that you will have to be on the operating table most of your day. It also means that your body will have to adjust and heal from two long incisions, which could take several weeks. During that time, it will be very difficult to maintain the muscle mass you have because you cannot walk or exercise the replaced hip and knee until everything has sufficiently healed. Although this is not the best option, it does show that you can replace a knee and a hip at the same time, if you really need to.

Robotic--Assisted Surgery

Robotic--assisted surgery is the most recent and technologically advanced surgery available. Lasers are used to cut bone with such precision that the bones can knit faster and without the potential fractures that can result in traditional surgery. The robotic instruments the surgeons use to make incisions and repair the damage to bone and tissue require only the smallest of incisions, and the surgeons use dissolving sutures so that your wounds heal with minimal surgery. One type of robotic surgery created just for total hip and partial knee replacements is known as "makoplasty."

If you select this type of surgery for your complex and combined hip and partial knee replacement, you can be up and walking around again very shortly, although you will have to take things slowly. Patients also find that they need minimal rehab time and do not require as much pain management medication or other pain management approaches as they would with traditional surgery. Being able to have your knee and hip surgery completed together by makoplasty means less surgery time, no additional surgeries, and very little down time for healing before returning to work and/or your usual activities.

For more information about makoplasty, contact a professional like those at Noyes Knee Institute.