Joint pain can make life miserable. Learning how to protect your joints and knowing the signs that they may need to be replaced can keep you on the move.

As increasing numbers of baby boomers reach retirement age, joint replacement surgery is becoming a reality for more and more Americans.

In fact, approximately 700,000 of us have surgery every year to replace damaged parts of joints—often knees and hips—with metal or plastic substitutes.

Although relief from osteoarthritis pain is a key reason for such surgery, improved joint function ranks high among those with a desire to continue active lifestyles. Learning how to protect your joints, and what to expect if joint replacement is in your future, can help you stay active for years.

Protect Your Joints
Although joint replacements have a high success rate, all operations carry risks, and complications can occur. Taking steps to care for your joints is always a wise alternative to putting up with pain or undergoing an operation.

The Arthritis Foundation and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons suggest you protect your joints by:

• Maintaining a healthy weight. Losing extra pounds reduces stress, wear, and tear on knees, hips, back, and feet.
• Exercising regularly. Physical activity protects joints by strengthening the muscles that support them.
• Avoiding repetitive stress. Alternating strenuous activities with rest puts less stress on sensitive joints.
• Swapping high-impact sports with low-impact activities. Instead of tennis, racquetball, or running, try swimming, water aerobics, walking, or golf.
• Using over-the-counter or prescription medications to control pain and inflammation. You can also receive injections of corticosteroids directly in painful knee joints.
• Taking part in physical or occupational therapy. This can increase joint flexibility, muscle strength, and range of motion.
• Using mechanical aids such as braces, crutches, walkers, or canes.

When to Replace

• In the best of circumstances, these lifestyle changes may be enough to improve function and control pain. However, if you have any of the following signs, speak with your doctor about joint replacement:
• Your joint pain is disturbing your sleep.
• You’ve tried different noninvasive treatments, including pain medications, and they’re not controlling your joint pain.
• Your joint pain is limiting your ability to keep up a normal routine.
• Your joint pain makes it hard for you to get out of a chair, go up stairs, or get up from the floor.

If your doctor believes you are a candidate for joint replacement, he or she can refer you to an orthopedic surgeon. The surgeon will examine you to make sure surgery is warranted and you’re healthy enough for the procedure.

Most older adults who have a painful joint replaced enjoy pain-free movement for a decade or more. However, people who have a joint replaced in their earlier years may need a second replacement later in life.

What’s New?
In addition to knees and hips, replacement joints have been developed for elbows, shoulders, and fingers. Recently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an artificial ankle that, unlike previous replacements, may provide full range of motion.

Some replacements can now be done using minimally invasive techniques. And in a new procedure called hip resurfacing, the joint socket is replaced but the end of the leg bone is retained and covered (“resurfaced”).

Over the years, surgical techniques have improved and new materials have been developed for implants. As a result, these surgeries have become one of the most dependable procedures performed today.

By Barbara Floria, senior writer for Vitality. For more information, visit the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons at www.orthoinfo.aaos.org.

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