TKR Surgery No Impediment to Work

This is good news for TKR patients. Ninety-eight percent of those who were working prior to their joint replacement surgery returned to work. And 89% did not just go back to work, they returned to their previous positions. This is the result of a survey conducted by an independent third party of more than 660 TKR patients, ages 18 to 60, from five major medical centers 1-5 years following their surgery

The investigators found that nearly 75% of patients (493) were employed during the three months prior to their TKR and that 98% returned to work after surgery. Of these patients, 89% successfully returned to the job they had prior to surgery. The return to work rate was 95% among sedentary employees, 91% among those in jobs deemed light; 100% in medium jobs, 98% in heavy jobs, and 97% in very heavy jobs. Men were more likely to have worked during the three months before surgery (83% versus 70%) but of those patients the rates returning to work after surgery were similar (96% of men versus 99% of women).

“When pain and suffering from end-stage degenerative joint disease of the knee compromises a patient’s ability to maintain gainful employment, total knee replacement is successful in keeping the patient in the work force, ” said lead study author and orthopaedic surgeon Adolph V. Lombardi, Jr., M.D.. “Returning patients back to work not only gives the patient a sense of fulfillment, but also is economically beneficial to our society.”

In a similar study of TKR patients at a large Swiss hospital researchers found that, prior to surgery, 39% of the patients reported an active lifestyle compared to 55% at five years postoperative. They found that medical comorbidities and the patient’s preoperative activity level substantially influenced physical activity five years post surgery. The study authors reported that, in the last decade, the proportion of patients with an active lifestyle before and after THR increased by 10%.

The lead study author Anne Lübbeke-Wolff, M.D., a Swiss orthopaedic surgeon, said, “Surgery substantially and durably improved physical activity levels in men and women of all age categories, but the level remained somewhat lower than just before the onset of osteoarthritis symptoms. In most instances, patients who had previously participated in activities such as bicycling, bowling, golf, mountain hiking or swimming, and who wished to continue them after surgery, were able to return to these activities.” The study authors presented their research at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.