Patient Guide to Total Knee Replacement Baltimore MD

Having any kind of surgery can be overwhelming.  Making a choice to have a surgery that is usually elective, like a total knee replacement Baltimore MD, is often fraught with uncertainty and many questions.  The fact that a knee joint and other complete body parts can now be replaced by medical science is amazing.  It can also be frightening for the patient who is contemplating that option.  Asking questions and gathering information is one way to make the decision process more manageable.

What to Ask Before Total Knee Replacement Surgery

Since making this kind of decision can be emotionally overwhelming, having a list of questions written down to ask the treatment team about total knee replacement surgery Baltimore is a good idea.  Here are a few ideas and examples:

• How can I expect my quality of life to be improved by the surgery?  As mentioned already, knee replacements are often elective surgeries that are chosen in order to help people be more active, or return to a better quality of life that they had before illness or injury caused their knee joints to stop working well.  Understanding the expected benefits of the surgery is essential to decision making.
• Do I have other options besides a total knee replacement surgery?  Today, there are some minimally invasive procedures that can repair certain parts of the knee joint without replacing the whole thing.  A less radical procedure may offer lesser benefits, yet enough improvement to achieve the treatment goals desired by the patient.
• What kind of joint replacement would be best?  What is the cost?  There are a number of different standardized joint replacements available today.  These come in different sizes to fit different patients.  The technology also exists to make a customized knee replacement joint that will fit each patient exactly.  For those who are concerned about cost, it is necessary to know the prices of all available options, and how much of each one might be covered by insurance.
• What will the recovery from surgery involve?  While recovery from knee replacement surgery is somewhat difficult for all patients, it does vary according to how healthy the individual is before surgery, and their commitment to putting time and effort into post-surgical therapies.