Knee Replacement at Memorial Joint Replacement Center: Norma’s Story

For more than a year, Norma lived with fairly constant osteoarthritis pain in her left knee. The pain worsened with long walks and when moving from a sitting to standing position, severely impacted her quality of life. At times, it would wake her from sleep.

“I was pretty much bone on bone,” said Norma, a runner, spin instructor and avid bike rider who underwent a total knee arthroplasty at Memorial Hospital West’s Joint Replacement Center.

Primarily focused on hip and knee replacements, the Joint Replacement Center is a coordinated effort to optimize the surgical process and outcomes for joint replacement. One of the cutting-edge elements used at the center is customized instrumentation, where the patient’s radiology data is collected to develop surgical instruments that will only work with that particular patient. The instruments help reduce blood loss and facilitate overall recovery.

Norma, 60, was up and out of bed the same day of her surgery, and able to start physical therapy right away. She was discharged two days later and resumed her active lifestyle after completing outpatient therapy.