Senior Citizens Should Seek a Second Opinion for a Doctors Knee Replacement Advice

DePuy Knee Lawsuit News

Getting a total knee replacement is an extreme and often unnecessary way to address arthritic pain

Friday, November 2, 2018 - A typical knee replacement patient is an elderly man or woman in constant pain from osteoarthritis who are told that total knee replacement will alleviate their pain. More than 90% of all total knee replacement patients are performed on elderly senior citizens, a kindly and trusting group of people, raised in an era of time when doctors were held in the highest esteem. Back in the day, if a doctor said that you should do this or do that, you did it, no questions asked. Questioning a doctor's advice by getting a second opinion was unthinkable. Even though people, in general, are more skeptical of their doctors, much of their trust of doctors has carried forward today in spite of the fact that economic considerations often color a doctor's advice. Orthopedic surgeons and physicians take legal but unethical payments for educational services and speaking engagements from medical device manufacturers that expect them to recommend and "sell" their medical device. The more knee replacement they do the more the doctor makes. There is a fortune to be made by doctors selling medical devices, none more so than the DePuy knee replacement device. It seems like doctors are recommending total knee replacement surgery to just about any senior citizen that comes their way complaining of osteoarthritic knee pain. Doctors are quick to paint a rosy picture of what a senior could expect after knee replacement while ignoring the potential for life-altering catastrophic knee device failures.

Doctors mostly tell their patients that they have had patients that were up and walking the same day as their surgery with the aid of hanging on to the arm of a hospital attendant or using a walker. Walking is the least of a new knee replacement problems, however, as standing up, kneeling down, or negotiating a flight of stairs with confidence can take years if ever. The majority of knee replacement patient say that it is very uncomfortable to kneel down and put pressure on the knee device.

A large number of total knee replacement patients are left in more pain after their surgery than they were in before therefore it behooves a person to explore all of their options. Most knee replacement patients are laid up for at least a year, some even longer, and some never achieve the comfort, mobility and active lifestyle that their doctor made them believe they would. An alternative to rushing into knee replacement surgery to alleviate pain is to undergo targeted physical therapy, exercise, and to lose weight. One of the best joint conditioning exercises is yoga. Going to a yoga class three to five days per week helps to stretch the tendons and ligaments in all the joints including the knees. Certain yoga poses help to squeeze the excess synovial fluid that has built up in the knee joints providing an increased and more comfortable range of motion. Yoga gradually and gently improves muscle, tendon and ligament strength in support of the knee and hip joints as well.

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