One of the biggest topics of discussion in today’s media, outside of current events, has to be health and wellness. A simple internet search for “healthy recipes” or “exercise” will return an almost infinite number of results. Even so, medical research has shown that people in the United States are presently much less healthy than they were even ten to twenty years ago. Evidence of this disparity is present in many kinds of research data sets, including those on the prevalence of childhood obesity and the younger ages at which people are starting to develop lifestyle-related diseases like type 2 diabetes. Another indicator of the declining health of the general population is shown by the increasing number of people who need a total knee replacement Baltimore MD.
Trends in Knee Replacement Baltimore
Along with the numbers of individuals who suffer from childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other lifestyle related disorders, the number of individuals who are seeking total knee replacement Baltimore is also increasing somewhat remarkably. The individuals needing the surgery are also getting younger; and the number of folks who need bilateral knee replacements, meaning both knee joints, has also increased. These trends offer new challenges for medical professionals who are involved in treating knee replacement patients. These are two of the issues that are becoming greater considerations in the provision of knee replacement surgeries:
- The most pressing issue is often whether or not the individual is really a good candidate for any kind of surgery. People who are extremely obese, or those who smoke, are less likely to successfully tolerate a general anesthetic than their thinner, non-smoking counterparts. While some of the surgical risks might be reduced by using a spinal block instead of a general anesthetic, there are not a whole lot of people who are anxious to be awake during a major orthopedic surgery, even if they cannot feel anything.
- The recovery from a single knee replacement surgery requires a decent level of physical fitness and commitment. This is to say nothing of the physical and mental strength needed to recover from a bilateral surgery. Therefore, professionals are having to think more and more about who can have knee replacements based on who is fit enough to endure the recovery.
medicaleducationtoday 