2015 marks the start of the 12th year of our research department. 2015 will see us initiate a study to evaluate the effectiveness of preoperative optimization of patients undergoing hip and knee replacement. The goal of this program is to take patients who are significantly overweight and not only lower their weight, but improve their fitness and make them better candidates to succeed after total hip and knee replacement. This will be an ongoing study to evaluate the effectiveness of this program that is being run in conjunction with Valley Medical Center and Pinnacle Physical Therapy to modify patients’ weight and fitness through a combination of nutritional counseling and exercise optimization. We are also going to initiate a study evaluating the effectiveness of computer assistance in placing the socket and stem in anterior hip replacement patients. This will be a study conducted at 4 sites across the United States, the aim of which is to improve the accuracy of cup and stem placement in total hip replacement to lower the risk of dislocation, improve the function of the hip replacement, and ensure proper limb length. We look forward to validating our techniques and the use of this exciting new technology.
We continue to monitor the outcomes of hip and knee replacement patients in our joint registry and are embarking on the 5-year followup of our patients who were enrolled in 2010 and 2011 in our anterior versus posterior hip replacement study. The 1-year results of this study were published in 2013 in the “Journal of Arthroplasty.”
We are on the cusp of many exciting changes in joint replacement as we evolve from long inpatient stays to short inpatient and overnight and even outpatient stays for joint replacement surgeries.
Stay tuned for more exciting news.
