If you are suffering from disabling knee arthritis with excruciating pain and stiffness, your doctor might have advised you to consider a Knee Replacement Surgery. However, the question is whether you should go for the surgery now or wait until the pandemic is finally over. As nobody can guarantee how long will the pandemic last, Dr. Nilen Shah, Consultant Orthopaedics, Bombay Hospital, Mumbai shares tips for considerations before going for the surgery during this time of the pandemic.
The right time for your Knee Replacement Surgery
This question may have different answers for different people. If you are in an area where the daily cases of COVID 19 are gradually decreasing, your preferred surgeon as well as the hospital have restarted non-COVID work, then by all means you can go ahead for the surgery. If on the other hand, the number of cases in your area are increasing daily, the hospitals are still focused only on COVID work, then probably you should still wait for the surgery and try to manage pain at home for a while.
Other factors to be considered would be the extent of pain and disability due to the knee arthritis and the overall state of health and the presence of comorbidities.
Precautions to be taken post-surgery amidst COVID
Precautions will need to be taken to ensure that the operation as well as the recovery from the operation is flawless and smooth. For this, apart from the general preoperative tests, test will be carried out to see that the patient does not have active COVID infection. The patient will be advised to wear a mask throughout the period of hospitalization and all the people who are involved in caring for the patients will also take adequate precautions.
The Hospital would generally restrict the number of visitors to the bare minimum, screen the visitors and may insist on testing the attendants of the patients for COVID. It would be preferable if the hospital has had High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters fitted to improve air quality.
Expectations from the surgery and aftercare advisory
The surgery will essentially be the same. Due to the advanced surgical technique of minimally invasive knee replacement, the patients’ recovery will be very quick. The patient is expected to walk within few hours of the surgery and be ready for discharge in 1-2 days. Recovery of the patient at home following the knee replacement surgery can be monitored digitally by specialized apps and by phone and video calls as required.
