Joint replacement surgery is becoming a more common procedure, as doctors are performing more knee and hip replacements than ever before. Some experts wondered if this significant rise in knee replacement procedures was partly being caused by doctors performing the operation on healthier patients. That’s not to say that their knees were perfectly healthy, but experts wondered if more doctors were recommending total knee replacements earlier in the care process.
Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Below, we take a closer look at what the data is saying about why more patients are undergoing knee replacement procedures.
The Rise In Knee Replacement Surgery
A recent study out of Canada sought to understand why there has been such a significant increase in knee replacement procedures in recent years. During their research, they uncovered that there was a 162% increase in the volume of total knee replacement procedures performed on patients in the US Medicare program between 1990 and 2010. Similar trends were also seen when reviewing data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, which found that between 2018 and 2019, there was a 22.5% increase in total knee replacements compared to the previous five years. Researchers said that although obesity and population growth accounted for some of this increase, these factors couldn’t fully explain the big jump in total knee replacement procedures. So were surgeons simply conducting knee replacements on healthier knees to help fill surgery room time?
Researchers found nothing in the data that suggests that surgeons were conducting knee replacement operations on healthier knees. The analysis found that patients were undergoing total knee arthroplasty with a level of knee function that is similar to past levels. So what’s driving the increase? Some experts believe that knee replacement surgery has become more mainstream and familiar, meaning patients are less hesitant about possibly going through with the procedure.
“Everybody knows somebody who has had a knee done or a hip done,” said Jasvinder Singh, MD, professor of medicine and epidemiology at University of Alabama at Birmingham, who was not involved with the research. “People are a lot more familiar with these things than they were 30 years ago.”
So it’s very possible that patients, not providers, are leading the surge behind the rising rate of total knee replacement procedures. As more people become familiar with the procedure and they learn of friends or family who are thriving after a total knee replacement, they are more likely to pursue the procedure for themselves. We have seen firsthand just how restorative a knee replacement procedure can be to a person’s activity level and overall quality of life, and we’re happy to see that a growing number of patients are looking into treatment options for their knee pain.
If you are dealing with chronic or debilitating knee pain, consider syncing up with Dr. Botero. We won’t jump right to knee replacement surgery, but it’s something we offer to the right patients when conservative care doesn’t achieve the necessary results. For more information on how you can restore function and decrease pain in your knee or hip, reach out to Dr. Botero and his team today at (865) 558-4444.
