Total Knee Replacement Specialists
Total Knee Replacement
Your knee is the largest joint in your body and is made up of three bones:
- The femur, or thighbone
- The tibia, or shinbone
- The patella, or kneecap
But these bones are only part of the picture. The soft and connective tissue components provide most of the support, movement, and cushioning in your knees and include:
- The medial and lateral meniscus for shock absorption
- Ligaments for stability
- Muscles for strength
- The synovial membrane to lubricate your cartilage
When all of these parts are working together, the knee functions with great support and mobility, but a breakdown in any one area threatens the overall function in your knee.
Why would I need a knee replacement surgery?
Far and away the leading driver behind total knee replacement is osteoarthritis. This degenerative condition leads to the breakdown of cartilage in the knee, which causes pain as your bones rub together and limit your movements because of inflammation.
Often, this degenerative condition can result in an advanced form known as tri-compartmental osteoarthritis of the knee. Tricompartmental osteoarthritis often causes visible knee deformities, such as a bow-legged or knock-kneed appearance when you’re standing.
What are my options for knee replacement?
Because your knee can degenerate in different ways and to varying degrees, there’s no one-size-fits-all knee replacement surgery. Recognizing this, ORTHOKnox offers MAKOplasty, a procedure that uses a robotic arm for more precision, allowing your surgeon the greatest degree of accuracy in replacing your knee.
By preserving as much of your own healthy bone and tissue, and balancing the ligaments to your knee, you will have a more natural-feeling knee.
Using the robotic technology, your surgeon can also offer a partial replacement to your knee. This is an option if you’re living with early- to mid-stage osteoarthritis in one part of the knee such as the medial (inner), patellofemoral (top), or lateral (outer) compartments of your knee.
Use of the robotics allows your surgeon to perform the surgery through an incision as small as 2.5-3 inches, in some cases. And aided by 3D imaging, your surgeon is able to place your implant with more precision than was available before.
If all three compartments are damaged, and your knee isn’t responding to other therapies, a total joint replacement may be the best solution. During this procedure, your doctor fits metal components onto your femur and tibia and places a plastic spacer in between, in effect replacing your total knee joint.
MAKO Robotic Arm Assisted Surgery Video
Knee Replacement Surgery in Knoxville and Athens, TN
If you’d like to learn more about knee replacement, call ORTHOKnox or request an appointment by filling out the online form.
