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| About Total Knee Replacement | Why Knee Replacement?
Once
the knee is damaged to the point that it is painful or that it
can no longer move in the way that it is intended, the patient
goes to a physician to see if anything can be done to change this
situation. There are things that can be done other than knee replacement
for people who have problems with their knees. Whether those things
are likely to be successful, depends a little bit on the specific
individual circumstances. One of the alternatives to total knee
replacement, of course, is to do nothing, simply to continue with
your present disability and your present discomfort and modifying
those, if possible, with:
That's
a reasonable alternative for some people and some people, when
they learn what they have to do with a total knee replacement,
decide that that is what they prefer. There are also other surgical
procedures that are lesser surgical procedures than total knee
replacement such as: osteotomy, arthroscopic debridement, and
synovectomy. These surgical procedures should be discussed with
you to determine if they are reasonable alternatives in your
case. Depending on the stage of your disease or damage, total
joint replacement may be the only reasonable surgical procedure.
This means that basically the choice is either to proceed with
a total joint replacement or simply to wait a little bit longer
to see how rapidly your condition deteriorates and to try some
other things including medication, limitation of activity, weight
reduction, etc.
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It
is important for you to realize that this is an elective surgical
procedure which means that you have to choose it. It's not absolutely
essential, although almost certainly you would be improved by
it as long as there are no major complications. The reason for
this report is to provide you with the kind of information as
well as answers to some typical questions that will help you make
that decision. 
