Bilateral Total Knee Arthroplasty Surgeons Provide Easy Checklist for Ideal Candidates

If your knee arthritis is causing severe pain that is reducing your quality of life, it’s time to take action. Why let pain rob you of the healthy, active lifestyle you want when there are realistic and effective solutions? Even for those patients that have debilitating pain in both knees, a surgical option exists: bilateral total knee arthroplasty.

Often referred to as bilateral total knee replacement, this procedure provides excellent results in terms of pain relief as well as the restoration of joint function. If you’re looking for a way to get your mobility back and move on with a life free of daily knee pain, set up an appointment to see our bilateral total knee arthroplasty surgeons here at Rothman Orthopaedic Institute. Our patients enjoy a success rate of over 95% after fifteen years!

Who is an Ideal Candidate for Bilateral Total Knee Replacement?

A Helpful Checklist

In order to determine whether you may be a good candidate for this procedure, please consider the list of questions below. Use this as a helpful checklist as you research possible treatment options:

Are you regularly experiencing severe pain in both knees due to arthritis?
Is your pain limiting your ability to perform everyday functions?
Does your pain worsen after long periods of standing or walking?
Have you noticed deformity beginning to occur in one or both of your knees?

If you answered “yes” to one or more of the above questions, look for qualified bilateral total knee arthroplasty surgeons, who can effectively diagnose your case and talk you through the pro’s and con’s of pursuing this surgical treatment option.

Perhaps equally as important to review, is the following list of reasons why you may not be a good candidate:

Do you have an active knee infection?
Have you sustained severe neurologic damage to one or both of your legs?
Do you have a cardiac, lung, and/or vascular disorder?
Are you over 80 years of age?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, your physician may recommend that you pursue a treatment option outside of bilateral total knee replacement - or, in the least, that you schedule a staged procedure rather than a simultaneous surgical event. A simultaneous procedure occurs when both knee joints are replaced on the same day, under the same anesthesia and within the same hospital stay.

Whether you and your surgeon decide upon simultaneous bilateral knee arthroplasty, staged bilateral knee arthroplasty or another treatment option altogether, the goals are always the same:

Reduce pain
Restore function
Improve the quality of life
Allow more independence

And these goals must all be accomplished through the treatment approach that will provide the highest chance for success with the least risk of complications. The team of bilateral total knee arthroplasty surgeons at Rothman Orthopaedic Institute have decades of experience in effectively diagnosing knee arthritis and helping patients decide on an appropriate treatment plan.

Why Rothman Orthopaedic Institute?

The hip program at Rothman Orthopaedic Institute is world-renowned for its pioneering leadership in surgical advancements and new techniques. Physicians are board-certified, highly trained experts in the hip subspecialty.

Research is the foundation of everything we do here at Rothman Orthopaedic Institute. Our patients get the best possible results because we’re always working to improve and update our treatment options to offer the best patient outcomes.

With more than 9,000 surgeries performed annually, Rothman Orthopaedic Institute’s joint replacement team is the premier provider of orthopedic care in the Delaware Valley. Call today or schedule an appointment online. And with 20 office locations regionally, highly trained bilateral total knee replacement surgeons are just around the corner!

Don’t forget to visit our Patient Ambassador program page and watch Jerry’s story for an inspirational story about life after a double knee replacement.
For more information, please visit us here or contact us at 1-800-321-9999.