Tennis after knee replacement

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Hello... my father is considering knee replacement but is concerned that he may not be able to play tennis after the surgery. What is the prognosis for someone age 69 who now plays tennis daily with a brace?

-- Sue Cassidy (nolan@javanet.com), October 01, 1999

Answers

Response to tennis after knee replacement

The high impact of tennis post TKA is generlaly not on the "recommended" list of activities. However, some canidates are able to return to doubles tennis due to less activity involved in it. However, it too, is still a lot of impact for the knee and might add to early wear on the joint prothesis and a resultant loosing aseptically of the joint.

Each case is different, each MD's recommendations for that patient will be different as well in many cases. Walking, biking (first on stationary bike) and swimming, are far more preferred types of effective exercise for post total knees generlaly.

At age 69, it is highly probable that your father will not need to ever have revision surgery on that knee, due to age of initiation of this first surgery. But it wold be wise in most cases to be conservative on the high impact activities, to make sure that he is not going to have to be a candidate for a revision surgery ever. the older the age of the patient, the higher the risk of complications with any surgery and rehabilitation; not to mention that any revisions of the knee can be extremely complicated and not anything that any ortho is going to relish having to do because of too active a lifestyle post TKA!.

Dr. Hungerford's former comments about physiotherapy PRE knee replacement, are well taken in this regard too. It is an excellent time to sit the patient down and educate them as to what to expect the lifetyle to be post the knee replacement so that he will not have unrealized expectations, and can be better prepared for the enjoyable things he will be able to do, not the things he will be missing out on perhaps.

-- (Msmorro@aol.com), October 03, 1999.


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