Safety of Orthopedic Stem Cell Therapies
Looking for some information on the internet I stumbled into a page, put up by an organization called the International Society for Stem Cell Research, entitled: “Nine things to know about stem cell treatments.” The first statement on that list reads like an ominous warning: “Currently, very few stem cell treatments have been proven to be safe” and further down […]
An Engineer’s View of Activity and Knee Health
It is well known that exercise and increased activity results in decreased pain and increased function in patients with knee osteoarthritis. It makes sense: more activity and exercises keep muscles, tendon, and ligaments strong, reducing the stress on the joints. But, now, with a paper entitled: “Tribological Rehydration of Cartilage: a New Insight into an old Problem”, a research team […]
Helping an Aging Patient with Knee Osteoarthritis: A 2 Year Follow Up
Jacqueline M. is a pleasant lady who was 81 years old when she first came to see us in late 2013. She had constant, severe pain in her left knee that prevented her from doing most of her activities of daily living. She was unable to enjoy one of her favorite hobbies: gardening. She had physical therapy and injections of […]
I Still Have Pain After a Knee Replacement Surgery…Now what?
I frequently see patients who complain of knee pain that either was not improved, or that it got worse, after a knee replacement surgery. Unfortunately, this is a very difficult problem to manage. Ruby C. is a female in her mid-fifties that came to our clinic today complaining of persistent, and severe, pain in both knees after having one knee […]
The Burden of Knee Replacement Surgery
The number of knee replacement surgeries in the USA has been steadily increasing in the last decade. In 2010, more than 700,000 knee joint replacement (and more than 500,000 knee arthroscopic) surgeries were performed in the USA. With the aging of the Baby Boomers, this number is expected to increase sharply in the next decade as well. It is estimated […]