Video Transcript:
Stephanie Kralevich: Hip and knee replacement surgeries have come a long way during the past two decades, and that means less pain and shorter recovery time for patients. Today, we are at ROC, or Regenerative Orthopedic Center, in Tualatin to speak with board-certified orthopedic surgeon, Christopher Nanson. Dr. Nanson, what’s your specialty here at ROC?
Dr. Chris Nanson: I’m an orthopedic surgeon specializing in hip and knee replacement surgeries.
Stephanie Kralevich: Hip replacement surgery has come a long way during the past couple of decades. How is it better for patients now?
Dr. Chris Nanson: So the biggest thing about a hip replacement is generally kind of how fast the pain goes away. And it’s so dramatic and so remarkable that over two-thirds of our patients never take a pain pill after surgery because the pain from the hip tends to be so much worse than the pain from the surgery.
Stephanie Kralevich: What do you tell a patient who’s been putting off hip surgery?
Dr. Chris Nanson: If it gets to the point where you’re really thinking about having a surgery for an arthritic joint, there’s not a lot of really effective conservative management for a hip, and the pain tends to ramp up fairly quickly once it starts, and then it really kind of disables you fairly fast. So most of my hip replacement patients, we’ve been talking about six to 12 months of pain versus a knee that could have been in pain for 20 years. Your recovery’s going to be so much quicker if you do it once you feel like the pain’s just becoming limiting rather than waiting until you’re basically stuck in a chair.
Stephanie Kralevich: You also do the Jiffy Knee™ procedure. Tell us about that.
Dr. Chris Nanson: So that is a trademarked name for a muscle-sparing knee approach. And so that results in a little bit quicker recovery because when you wake up, you have full muscular control of your quadriceps rather than the muscle being a bit stunned. And that’s a lot of fun watching somebody an hour after a knee replacement walk with a normal gait utilizing their walker through our surgery center before they go home because they do have that muscle function intact.
Stephanie Kralevich: And does that mean less pain following the procedure?
Dr. Chris Nanson: It’s a part of our whole program that we have here at ROC where we manage patients’ postoperative pain. And what we’re seeing is far less consumption of narcotic pain medications, a much easier recovery from hip and knee replacement surgeries, just utilizing all of the techniques that we use, which involve surgical technique and alignments and implants and the medications we use and the advice we give to patients. And so we’re really working on, it’s not just one thing that makes a surgery better. It’s 15 to 20 things that you do that can make a surgery better and make that recovery road a lot easier for your patient.
Stephanie Kralevich: To learn more about orthopedic care and recovery at Regenerative Orthopedic Center, visit rocpdx.com.