Listening Time — 23:27
As many Americans look to maintain healthy and active lifestyles up to and through their retirement years, their knees are struggling to keep up. Wear and tear can lead to osteoarthritis, which can lead to debilitating pain. And increasingly, people are turning to knee replacement surgery to help solve this problem.
In this episode, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Brian Burnikel, MD, and physical therapist Jackie DelGiorno, PT, DPT, OCS, discuss what patients face when they elect to get a total knee replacement - from the crucial pre-operative conditioning, to the surgery itself, to the almost immediate physical therapy that follows, and the long-term prognosis.
Download the podcast on iTunes or listen below:
Read more about Total Knee Replacement and Osteoarthritis of the Knee.
Dr. Burnikel is an orthopaedic surgeon with the Steadman-Hawkins Clinic of the Carolinas and the Greenville Health System (GHS) in South Carolina. A specialist in minimally invasive hip and knee replacement, Dr. Burnikel is the medical director for the Total Joint Center at GHS. His research focuses on alternate-bearing surfaces in total joint arthroplasty.
Jackie DelGiorno is a physical therapist with Proaxis Therapy in Patewood, South Carolina. A board-certified orthopedic clinical specialist (OCS), she is currently the lead research therapist in a randomized control trial observing the use of a garment based NMES system (Kneehab) for patients undergoing Total Knee Arthroplasty.
