Same day surgery process for total joints

Editor's Note

Thomas King, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at the Knee, Hip & Shoulder Center, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has developed a process for total knee and hip replacements that allows many patients to leave the same day after surgery.

He uses a combination of a minimally invasive technique, regional anesthesia, a new surgical antiseptic that sterilizes the wound, an agent to reduce bleeding, and a slow-release local anesthetic that lasts 3 days and brings the pain level down to about a 4 or 5 on a scale of 10. 

PORTSMOUTH - The biggest postoperative difficulty for patients undergoing total knee or hip replacements is pain.It kept them in the hospital on an average of three days during which pain was managed and physical therapy was started before they went home or to a rehabilitation facility.Dr. Thomas King, of the Knee, Hip and Shoulder Center in Portsmouth, has developed a surgical method that is allowing many of his patients to leave the same day of surgery after total joint replacements.He