Total Knee Arthroplasty - High Flexion Prosthetic & Exercise

Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is an effective method to eliminate pain and restore function in a patient with chronic arthritis of the knee joints. The first goals of this CEU course are to determine whether the prosthesis modifications improve clinical and radiographic results following high flexion (HF) TKA and to evaluate post TKA total range of motion (ROM) among a group of patients who received a gender specific HF design modification implant compared to a control group of non-specific implants in a group of 39 TKAs. Next, this course will also look into performance-based tests such as kneeling and standing from a chair to evaluate the knee function in a HF-TKA as compared to a conventional TKA one year post-operatively. This section also takes a closer look at the knee velocity and ground reaction forces measured during the sit to stand test. The third section will investigate what the capability is for performing various HF activities and whether HF activities increase the chance of aseptic loosening after HF-TKA in a study of 260 patients between 2001 and 2009 who all received HF TKAs. Finally, we will look at the short term clinical and radiographic outcomes of individuals with two different types of HF-TKA, one with newer design modifications and evaluate any changes in outcome measures. The reading materials for this course include articles from the Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research and BioMed Central Musculoskeletal Disorders.