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Total Hip Replacement
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Arthritis (also called osteoarthritis or degenerative arthritis) involves the swelling and damage of joints causing pain, stiffness and limited movement. Since the hips are major weight bearing joints in the body, they are at risk for osteoarthritis.
While age is the strongest risk factor for coxarthrosis, there may be other causes: Heredity: Some people are born with defective cartilage. Injury: Damage from injury or repetitive motions. Obesity: All joints carry extra weights.  Symptoms
Arthritis sufferers may feel as if their hips are stiff and their leg motions are limited. Pain may be felt in the hip, the inner thigh, buttocks or even in the knees. Severe arthritis may create pain at all times, even when at rest.
Because there is no treatment to rebuild the joint cartilage, this problem can only be treated with a mechanical procedure: the total hip replacement. Our goal is to improve the quality of life by giving a stable, pain-free hip with excellent angle of motion.
Nowadays we nearly always use hip prostheses which can be implanted without cement.
This reduces operation time and therefore stress for the patients. In Europe femur-implants with an rectangular shape are in wide use. This design provides a better rotational stability and revision procedures can be done much easier. Nevertheless the position of the implants is crucial. To optimize the angulation of the joint components we use an intraoperative navigation system on the base of infrared rays to place the prosthesis components in an optimal position, which promises the best longevity of the artificial joint.
 The operation usually lasts 1 hour. During the procedure we use a so called cellsaver device, which reduces the necessity of blood transfusions dramatically . From the first day after the operation the patient is able to leave the bed and walk around with crutches. Physiotherapy will take place every day 
during the hospital stay. After two weeks most patients can walk with crutches without larger problems. Nevertheless the complete recovery will last about 12 weeks after the operation, in which the patient should concentrate on his new artificial joint.
Recently we introduced the new concept of articular surface replacement in our hospital. This is a modern procedure similar to the knee joint only the arthritic surfaces in the hip are replaced with a highly polished metal ball on the femoral side and a highly polished metal cup on the acetabular side. Especially young and active patients may benefit from this kind of implant. |
