Total Knee Replacement & Rehabilitation: The Knee Owner's Manual

Rating:
Summary: A must for those considering TKR
Review: This is an excellent book for anyone thinking of having TKR. I would suggest that you read it prior having your surgery and keep it next to you during rehab. The information contained in this book answered many of the questions my husband has had. He refers to it on a daily basis for exercises and scar management. Now he is 9 weeks post surgical and he walks with no pain, no canes or braces and he is 83. The exercises in this book have been much more advanced than he received in Physical Therapy. It is great having a P. Therapist who has been through the surgery write about his experience.

Rating:
Summary: A very useful companion to a total knee replacement
Review: Total Knee Replacement & Rehabilitation is written by a surgeon (Daniel Brugioni) and a physiotherapist (Jeff Falkel), both well-qualified and specialists in this topic. Dr Falkel's own bilateral knee replacement - both knees at the same time - was an eye-opener to him and changed his own approach to managing knee replacement patients.

The number of people having total knee replacement is due to massively increase as post-war baby boomers start to hit their sixties, but this is unfortunately occurring at a time when health insurance companies around the world are tightening up on cost containment. The authors recognise that rehabilitation after total knee replacement is long, and insurance companies already do not fund adequate physiotherapy time. This book was written to support the knee replacement patient with practical advice for a full year after surgery.

The first two chapters give an overview of arthritis and current approaches to slowing its progression and improving quality of life. Knee replacement is discussed in some detail - basic design considerations, bilateral knee replacement and how to go about finding a competent surgeon. Question and answer sessions complete each chapter.

There is a useful pre-surgery chapter, advising on getting your home ready for your return from hospital and giving useful exercise regimes for building up strength to facilitate the use of crutches or a walker after surgery. What to expect once you arrive at the hospital and on the day of your operation are covered in some detail, but detail of the surgical process itself has been deliberately minimised. Potential complications are, however, covered in an appendix.

From this point on the book really fleshes out, and focuses on rehabilitation, taking the reader day by day through carefully chosen exercise regimes, all explained and fully illustrated. Through the early days on the ward, then home, and beyond are all covered in significant detail, using for the greater part readily available household items as rehabilitation aids.

There are several sections on scar management. Bathroom aids are discussed. Range-of-motion exercises, strengthening exercises, balance exercises, endurance exercises - all are discussed and illustrated, and carefully graduated as time progresses, right the way to a full return to normal activities. Question and answer sessions accompany each chapter, and an index of the exercises is available in its own appendix for ready reference.

This book will be extremely useful to anyone contemplating total knee replacement.

Dr Sheila Strover
http://www.kneeguru.co.uk