Joint Replacement

Joint replacement is a great success story of modern orthopaedic surgery. However, there are years' of research behind a successful joint replacement prosthesis. A successful prosthesis has to fulfill certain criteria. It should:

• give adequate pain relief

• be well tolerated without significant side effects

• allow return to reasonable level of activity

• last reasonable length of time

In order to achieve these goals, we need to know in detail about the biomechanics of a particular joint. An important reason why early artificial prostheses failed was because of the lack of understanding of the biomechanics of the joint in question. 

Hip and knee are the joints widely and successfully replaced. The results from replacement of shoulder, elbow, ankle, wrist have not matched the results from hip or knee replacement.