For baby boomers, it's hip to undergo surgery http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090902/NEWS/909020319/-1/NEWS
By CYNTHIA McCORMICK [email protected] September 02, 2009 When Gov. Deval Patrick had a hip operation yesterday, the 53-year-old joined a growing number of baby boomers who are opting for joint replacement surgery sooner rather than later. Physicians used to tell patients in their 50s to wait a while, said Dr. Scott Abramson at the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Cape and Islands. "People would suffer in silence for 10 years until the surgeons were willing to do" the hip replacement. But with improving technology, fewer complications and longer-lasting implants hip-joint replacements now last 20 to 25 years surgeons are operating on younger and younger people. RHCI now sees outpatients in their 40s recovering from hip surgery, said Abramson, a rehabilitation physician. "They want to stay active," he said. "Baby boomers are less tolerant of restrictions on their lifestyle," said Dr. Scott Harris, an orthopedic surgeon in Bourne who does about 30 hip replacements a year at Falmouth Hospital. Without surgery, he said, "their quality of life would be limited." For Kate Orth, a 52-year-old Sandwich resident, the pain of not being able to enjoy outdoor activities last summer removed any doubts she may have had about the surgery. Her osteoarthritis had been getting progressively worse, and she could no longer go for walks with her dog, swim or bicycle. "It was bone on bone," said Orth, who works as an outpatient scheduler at RHCI, about the pain. "I said this is it it's time." The hardest part for the mother of two was carving out space for the surgery, which kept her out of work for eight weeks. She spent three days in Jordan Hospital in Plymouth and was in a rehabilitation facility for a couple of days. When she first got home, she was under the care of a visiting nurse, and then was a physical therapy outpatient at RHCI twice a week. Patrick is expected to recuperate at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston for four to five days and will follow up with outpatient rehabilitation, according to a press release from his office. The governor has said he expects to work from home shortly after his surgery. The operation on Patrick's left hip was prescribed to ease the pain of arthritis, which may have been caused by his hip being injured in a 1978 truck accident in Sudan. Patrick was a postgraduate United Nations fellow at the time. In hip-replacement surgery, painful parts of the hip are replaced by an artificial socket and ball, as well as a stem that goes inside the femur, or thighbone. Harris said he uses titanium metal for the socket and stem and plastic for the liner in the socket. Using what he said is a minimally invasive technique, Harris makes a 3-inch incision in front of the hip a far cry from the knee-to-hip scars of years past. Following surgery, the most important thing is to make sure the hips don't dislocate, Abramson said. Patients with anterior, or front-of-the-hip incisions, are instructed to avoid a wide stride for the first few weeks, said Kim Patota, the inpatient physical therapist at RHCI. Patients whose surgeons have cut through the buttocks muscles are told not to bend past 90 degrees. Orth said it took six months to get back to completely normal, but she wishes she had gone through surgery sooner. Her operation was in September and this summer she was able to kayak, swim, walk and bicycle. "It's so much better not to have the pain," Orth said. . --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
