Like most people who’ve had a hip or knee replacement—which replaces an arthritic or damaged joint with an artificial implant— 60-year-old Ron Walton will tell you that he feels more mobile than he has in years.

“Before I had the knee surgery, just walking up a flight of stairs was painful. Now I can walk up and down hills, chase horses and get out and about and it doesn’t hurt,” he says. In Walton’s case, as in many cases, replacing a knee or hip—especially using the latest techniques and technologies—can restore the ability to get up and go.

“I’ve had patients where the instrumentation we’ve used for surgery in the past might not have been as effective,” says Stephen Zabinski, MD, division director of orthopedic surgery at Shore Memorial Hospital. “But breakthroughs give us the ability to perform these more complicated kinds of procedures much more easily.”

Some of the latest advances include:
Computer-guided surgery. Among the most recent innovations in joint replacement, this technology will continue to evolve over the next 10 years, Dr. Zabinski says. Sensors are hooked
into the patient’s bones, and a computer assists with navigation so the surgeon can place the implant with greater accuracy and precision.

Minimally invasive techniques. Both knee and hip replacements can be performed today in a way that involves much-smaller incisions—as well as less muscle injury and soft tissue damage—than in the past. “It’s still a major operation, because you’re cutting bone and disrupting some of the blood flow into the joint,” Dr. Zabinski says. “Pain and swelling will be about the same, but the scars are smaller.”

Partial knee replacements. This procedure isn’t exactly new but has been making a comeback in recent years when coupled with other improvements in joint replacement, according to Dr. Zabinski. In addition to a smaller incision, partial knee replacements take about half the healing time as total knee replacements, which require two or three months for a full recovery.

Material upgrades. Many of the advances in joint replacement result from the materials used to create the artificial joints. For example, hip replacements can be performed using components made of metal, ceramic or high-tech plastic, all of which can last 20 years or more.

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