Frequently Asked Questions

When is it time for me to consider surgery?
Joint replacement surgery is an extremely successful procedure to relieve pain and increase function. As surgeons, we operate on patients not on x-rays. Therefore, you should consider having a joint replacement when despite all of the non-operative treatments, the number of bad days outweigh the number of good days. Quality of life is the most important indicator as patients’ tolerance of pain varies and the amount of dysfunction is different between patients with the same severity of arthritis. When your quality of life has suffered to the point where you need something done, then it’s time to consider some type of joint implant surgery.

How long will my implant last?
The lifespan of an implant depends on a number of factors. Two of these factors totally depend on you, the patient—your weight and your activity level. We encourage you to maintain an ideal body weight and live a moderately active lifestyle avoiding high impact activities. Overall, the success rate of these operations vary between 90-95% at 10 years, which means, more than 90 out of every 100 hip or knee implants are still functioning well 10 years after surgery. If you follow these guidelines your man made implant should last approximately 15 years.

What is a partial knee?
The knee is composed of three areas or compartments: your kneecap, your outer joint space or lateral compartment, and your inner joint space or medial compartment. Up to 30% of patients presenting with severe knee pain may have arthritis or disease that only affects one of these three compartments. In these cases, the surgeons at Joint Implant Surgeons might consider only replacing the worn out or diseased area with a combination of metal and plastic, hence the term partial knee. We have noted that the recovery is significantly faster and the function may be better including more range of motion and a more normal feeling knee.

Do you use the women’s knee?
We at Joint Implant Surgeons use the knee that fits you, the patient, whether you are male or female, Asian, Caucasian, or African-American. Significant marketing and public relation efforts have been driven over the last few years around the concept of a knee that has been made for women. We would certainly acknowledge that there is difference between men and women; however, the changes in the size and shape and function of the knee, appear to be more closely related to the patient’s height. For example, a short male patient and a short female patient will have similar sizes and shapes to their bones. We have assisted in the development of and use an implant system that approaches the knee from not only a gender aspect but a size and shape aspect. Furthermore, we have worked on technology of obtaining preoperative MRI’s to ascertain your specific anatomy and determine preoperatively where to position your components as well as which size would be appropriate. This is called the Signature Program or the Patient Specific Knee Program.

What are the risks?
With any surgery there are certain risks. From an orthopaedic perspective there are multiple potential risks we try to prevent which include infection, postoperative blood clot, breakage of the bone during surgery, nerve injury causing numbness, and blood loss requiring transfusions. Fortunately, these instances occur so infrequently that it is less than a quarter percent. Two risks that we worry about and try to prevent at all cost are the development of a blood clot and the development of infection. Around the time of surgery, patients are evaluated for an increased risk of blood clot and will be given a blood thinner after surgery. Prevention of infection is the upmost importance to the surgeons of Joint Implant Surgeons, and all patients receive antibiotics before the time of surgery. This has been clinically proven to be the most effective method for reducing the risk of infection. Other unforeseen mechanical complications can occur with the implant, and we use specialized techniques and implant systems to try and avoid these; however, sometimes unfortunately they are unavoidable.

What is minimally invasive surgery?
By definition the word minimal means the least necessary. In the majority of cases, we are able to spare muscles and ligaments that we previously felt needed to be either cut or dissected in order to perform these operations. Minimally invasive surgery is performed through the smallest incision with a minimal amount of trauma. We also use the minimal amount of anesthesia necessary to provide excellent pain relief and function after the surgery and to try to reduce the side effects of that anesthesia such as nausea, itching and sleepiness. In summary, minimally invasive surgery is a movement towards rapid recovery and returning you back to society as quickly as possible.

When can I drive?
Routinely we have told patients with a left knee or left hip replacement that they can drive whenever they are off narcotic pain medication, are no longer using a walker for support, and feel safe to return behind the wheel. This time will vary significantly between patients. For a right knee or hip replacement, current data has shown that on average, patients are ready to return to driving at six weeks. However, we at Joint Implant Surgeons have now developed a protocol by which we use a validated driving simulator to test patient’s gas to brake response time following surgery. If you are interested in driving sooner than six weeks a simple brake response time test can be performed and we can determine if you are appropriate to return to driving.

When will I be back to normal?
Depending on the complexity and invasiveness of the procedure, patient’s recovery time will vary. Additionally, a patient’s recovery maybe slowed or accelerated based on their preoperative conditioning. We routinely tell a patient in a light to moderate labor occupation that they can return to work in 6-8 weeks; however, those who have a more sedentary job or lifestyle may return to baseline activity in a 3-4 week time frame. Increased range of motion and control of swelling may continue for up to a year following joint replacement surgery.

What experience do you have with these procedures?
Joint Implant Surgeons, Inc. was founded by Thomas M. Mallory, M.D. in the early 1970’s and has always been a practice solely dedicated to adult reconstruction of the hip and knee. A recent review of our clinical database shows that we have performed over 30,000 hip and knee arthroplasty procedure over the last two decades. Upon establishing Joint Implant Surgeons, Dr. Mallory performed the first hip replacement in Columbus, Ohio, and the surgeons of Joint Implant Surgeons are also among the first to perform mobile-bearing partial knee replacement, anterior supine muscle sparing hip replacement, hip resurfacing, and MRI guided customized total knee replacement procedures.

Will I have any limitations after surgery?
Certainly for the first few weeks after surgery patients will have limitations due to pain and discomfort; however, as you continue to improve from surgery, your limitations will decrease. We encourage all of our patients to return to all of the basic activities of daily living. We stress the maintenance of the daily exercise routing and we suggest that they be involved in activities which are not significantly impact loading. After knee replacement surgery patients may report difficulty with kneeling. While we do not feel that kneeling will injure the implant or the patient, there maybe significant discomfort or difficulty rising from the kneeling position. We recommend to patients that if they are able to kneel without pain, then they can kneel and if kneeling causes them pain or discomfort, then kneeling should be avoided.

To schedule an appointment with one of our physicians,
please contact us at (614) 221-6331
or toll free at (877) 550-4740.