Knee Cap Replacement is a type of partial knee replacement surgery in which only patellofemoral articulation is replaced with implants.
To understand this surgical procedure we have to understand knee anatomy first.
If you see lower end of femur it has a groove for patella called patellofemoral groove. This is the place where patella or knee cap glides over femur smoothly.
In many of knee pain cases when knee pain diagnosis is done, patient come to know that they have knee cap arthritis or patelloemoral arthritis.
In this case under-surface of patella has arthritic changes and when it glides on patellofemoral groove it causes arthritic knee pain under knee cap.
When it is severe enough to hamper day to day life patient has to think about operation.
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Commonest symptoms for Kneecap arthritis:
Strangely normal walking can be uneventful.
Thorough knee pain diagnosis should be done to rule out any other knee injuries.
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In this surgical procedure 2 implants are fixed in patello femoral joint.
So whole knee anatomy remains intact only patellofemoral joint surface is replaced. |
It is done under general anesthesia.
Hospital stay is of around 3-4 days depending on your doctor.
Typically any major surgical intervention is last resort for doctors .
Usually doctors try to treat knee cap injuries and knee cap pain with traditional non surgical treatments like:
This surgery is not done frequently since its limited client base.
When I say limited client base I mean patients older then 50 years but not too old.
More over reason its done in younger individual because later down the life if knee cap implant wears out then they can go for total knee replacement surgery.
Typical life span of knee cap replacement is around 10 years in 85-90% of cases.
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