Elevate Your Health Colorado Options to maintain joint health for life

When Ruth Nauts, MD, received a photo of one of her patients atop one of Colorado’s famed 14,000-foot peaks, the view wasn’t the only thing that impressed her. Not too long before, the same patient had undergone double-knee replacement surgery at Kaiser Permanente Colorado.

The photo provides an accurate image of the typical joint replacement patient: An active, aging baby boomer, unwilling to let osteoarthritis slow him down. In fact, osteoarthritis, arthritis and joint injuries are the most common reasons baby boomers are seeking elective joint replacement surgery.

“Baby boomers refuse to age the same way their parents did, so we’re performing more joint replacement surgeries on younger patients,” says Dr. Nauts, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon with Kaiser Permanente Colorado. Of the 700,000-plus people who receive total hip or knee replacements annually in the U.S., 40 percent are age 65 or younger.

Replacing damaged joints
During knee replacement surgery, Dr. Nauts removes the damaged ends of the thigh bone (femur) and shin bone (tibia) and replaces them with an artificial surface. With hip replacement surgery, she replaces the diseased cartilage and bone of the ball and socket with artificial surfaces including metal alloys, ceramic, or polyethylene. Replacing the worn out, inflamed or damaged tissue with the new surface is essentially the only long-term treatment for arthritis, injuries, and other progressive joint conditions.

Patients undergoing joint replacement surgery at Kaiser Permanente benefit from its Total Joint Replacement Registry, which allows caregivers to analyze data from more than 100,000 joint replacement cases performed by its surgeons nationwide.

“The registry is the largest in the nation and we use information from it to develop the best surgical protocols, evaluate risk factors associated with certain surgeries, and assess how implants benefit patients,” Dr. Nauts says. She also contributes to the registry by submitting data from her joint surgeries.

Joint health for the long term
Joint replacement surgery is one of the best options for relieving pain and keeping people like Dr. Nauts’ mountain-climbing patient living an active lifestyle. To keep your joints in peak condition as you age, she recommends the following:

• Perform low-impact exercises. These keep the joints, surrounding muscles, and connective tissues agile and strong, and helps relieve pain from arthritis. Strength training, swimming, and walking are some of the best low-impact exercises. “Training that keeps the muscles that surround the joint engaged all through range of motion will protect the joint,” Dr. Nauts says.
• Maintain a healthy weight. Extra weight puts strain on the joints in the lower extremities. Keep within 10 pounds of an ideal weight to keep joints healthy. Unsure if your weight is healthy? Find your body mass index (BMI) to see if you fall within a healthy range.
• Pay attention to joint pain. The sooner you get a prognosis and address joint pain, the better your chances of avoiding injury and surgery. “Anyone who’s reached a point where he or she is giving up activities because of joint pain should talk to a physician about whether surgery is an option,” Dr. Nauts says.

Learn about specific joint replacement procedures and tips to keep joints healthy at kp.org.