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Total Knee Replacement Are You A Candidate For TKR
This is a very common but troubling question which a knee arthritis patient asks. Many times patients realize that they need surgery but are concerned about the timing of the surgery. Ideally, the only indication that dictates the need for surgery is the amount of pain the patient is in. If an individual who has arthritis has tried all the other options but the pain is affecting the quality of life then the patient should opt for a knee replacement.
It has been proved beyond doubt that the knee replacement done in younger individuals do worse than in the elderly. Most commonly joint replacement is offered for patients in the 55-70 year age group. The younger an individual at the time of primary joint replacement the greater the need for revision joint replacement.
Your surgeon will evaluate you with a series of questions along with physical examination and radiological correlation to determine if your symptoms need a knee replacement. For objectifying the subjective nature of symptoms there are questionnaires like WOMAC score, Oxford Knee scoring, KSS score system.
There are some patients who are not ready either because of fear, ignorance or financial reasons to undergo a joint replacement. The problems of postponing a knee replacement are- quality of life is seriously impaired and with increasing age of the individual the morbidity and mortality risk of anaesthesia generally increases. It might reach a point where the patient is ready for a joint replacement but the risk of anaesthesia will be excessive. Surgery done after significant delay also generally has a poorer outcome.
