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February 19, 2009

An Interesting Factoid About Joint Replacement

There was a guest speaker today in our Musculoskeletal Intervention class regarding joint replacements. The most memorable thing I got out of the presentation was that Caucasian men in their 50s of Scandinavian decent with gray hair and male pattern baldness are more likely to need bilateral knee replacements.

Now, I know this sounds like I was asleep during the lecture, but I said the most memorable, not the most interesting or most valuable. There was plenty of valuable information because our speaker was an expert orthopedic surgeon and his lecture was delivered with lots of case scenarios which makes it entertaining to me.

I did find out some good news. With proper care, the average knee replacement is expected to last about 20 years and the average hip replacement 35 years. This is a much better prognosis than was originally expected of artificial joints when they were first being replaced routinely in the late 1980s and 1990s. More people and younger people are opting for joint replacements, and as methods and materials improve, they're expected to last longer and longer.

tags: massage massagetherapy wellness massage therapy bodywork health

Posted by linda at February 19, 2009 5:25 PM