Osteoarthritis affects mostly everyone as we age. But it is a pain that we don’t have to live with. Beijing United Family Hospital's Chief Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. Jike Lu shares how this ailment can be resolved.
Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis, and the hip is one of the most commonly affected joint. It occurs when the protective cartilage in your hip joint wears down over time. The cause of osteoarthritis of the hip can be generally divided into two types: primary and secondary. While primary osteoarthritis is related to aging and mostly affects the elderly, secondary osteoarthritis is linked to various joint injuries and risk factors like obesity and deformed joints at birth, and can happen to people of all ages.
What are the symptoms of osteoarthritis of the hip joint? Early symptoms of osteoarthritis involve stiffness accompanied by a minor joint pain. This tends to affect patients more in the morning, when they wake up with stiff joints and may find it difficult moving their hips and doing everyday activities. For example, they may have trouble bending over to tie a shoe, squatting down, rising from a chair, crossing their legs, or taking a short walk. The initial joint pain can also escalate from what feels like a toothache to a knife cut, worsening the weakness in the legs and eventually leading to the loss of the joint’s flexibility and mobility.
What treatment methods are there? We take a stepwise approach to treating hip osteoarthritis, which starts with non-surgical management such as early detection and patient education. For example, patients would be advised against playing high-impact sport, or sitting for too long if they’re obese. In the early stage of hip osteoarthritis, the main treatment is physical therapy, alone with some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication. The purpose is to stretch and strengthen the muscle and help patients regain mobility, relieve the pain as well as stiffness in the hip joint. However, if that doesn’t provide relief, patients should consider undergoing a hip replacement surgery to remove and repair the damaged bone and cartilage.
Why did Beijing United Family Hospital (BJU) choose to introduce the Mako Orthopedic Robot? At BJU we prioritise the quality and safety of the service for our patients. To ensure better, more accurate and efficient delivery of hip replacement, we have adopted the Mako Orthopedic Robot, a revolutionary robotic machine from the U.S. that provides greater accuracy in the procedure. Using it leads to much faster recovery and likely long-term better outcomes for patients.
What are the new advantages of Mako Orthopedic Robot compared with traditional surgery? This robotic machine significantly reduces human errors in surgery for even the most experienced surgeons. It can achieve placement accuracy down to the sub-millimeter. This helps provide more accurate and better-fit implants for patients. In addition, it removes the damaged cartilage through a smaller insertion without disrupting nearby nerves and tissues, meaning patients experience less blood loss and injury during the surgery, and fewer hip dislocation discrepancies in leg length.
Dr. Lu is the Chair of the Department of Orthopedics at Beijing United Family Hospital. To schedule an appointment with him, call the BJU Service Center at 4008-919191.- Are you suffering from kneecap pain? Dr. Lu explains what it is in this article.