Sarcopenia is muscle loss as you age. Who gets it? Everyone, unless you work to maintain muscle mass.

Adding weight training, weight lifting or some type of resistance exercises after age 35 is important. After age 60 studies have revealed that you have to work harder to maintain your muscle mass and strength. Keeping your muscles strong will reduce the risk of falling which in turn reduces the risk of fracture. Resistance training will help to increase your metabolism and aerobic capacity.
Cardio is important but don’t forget to integrate weight lifting into your workout regiment.

The short answer is yes. Here’s a quiz to test your knowledge:

1. Who gets more ACL tears percentage wise?
2. Which gender gets worse concussions ?
3. Do men or women have a higher incidence of stress fractures?
4. Who experiences more traumatic dislocations of the shoulder?
5. What about sports related traumatic fractures in all bones?

This is why cleaning your gutters is dangerous! I saw this patient as a second opinion. He had surgery elsewhere. When he fell off the roof, he landed directly on his feet like a cat and shattered his talus which is one of the major bones in the ankle. He is going to need to have all the screws removed and his ankle fused. My medical advise is to hire a professional to clean out your gutters!!!

Proud to be chair of the campaign at the Norton Commons YMCA. We exceeded our goal!! The hardworking board raised money to support 171 children at Safeplace, 47 cancer survivors to workout with Lifestrong, 88 children for the swim access program and 77 children for the youth sports program. The YMCA is WAY more than just a gym!

Osteoarthritis can affect any joint in your body. When arthritis occurs the cartilage that covers the ends of the bones and make up a joint, break down leaving the ends of the bone exposed. This causes pain, deformity, swelling and loss of range of motion. When non surgical treatment has failed, surgery is an option.

If the arthritis involves more than one compartment of the knee, a total knee replacement is a surgical treatment option. A total knee replacement is a major surgery that requires a prolonged course of recovery. Knee replacement surgery can be a life altering procedure to restore range of motion, reduce pain and correct angular deformities. It can be a double edged sword in the sense that there is a high risk in patients who are morbidly obese, smokers, diabetics, and or have vascular disease. Some patients that undergo total knee replacements do not get good results, studies have revealed that up to 23% of patients are unhappy with their total knee.

It’s not good to completely dislocate your knee cap. When this occurs it can knock off pieces of the cartilage that covers the undersurface of the patella. Images below outlined in green show a piece of cartilage knocked off and were floating around the knee joint. The blue outline is the donor site.

In the spirit of the Hamilton tickets that went on sale in Louisville… I have never quite understood the phrase, “break a leg” as a good luck statement. Especially from an orthopedists point of view.

This is what I envision when I hear that phrase…

This image is of a person that broke a leg.

This is a normal femur.

This is after an intramedullary rod has been placed to fix the fractured femur.

#breakaleg #femurfracture #hamilton

Arthritis by definition is loss of the articular cartilage that covers the ends of the bone that make up different joints in your body. The knee is one of the largest joints in the body. Arthritis is caused by the natural aging process, morbid obesity, genetics and trauma.

When non operative or conversation treatment has been tried and failed the next option is surgical intervention. The knee is made up of 3 compartments. A total knee replacement is when all three compartments become replaced or resurfaced. A uni-compartment knee replacement is performed when only one of the three compartments are replaced.

The most minimally invasive surgical treatment for knee arthritis is a knee arthroscopy. This has fairly narrow indications. In some cases of knee arthritis when pieces of cartilage break off it can cause mechanical symptoms such as catching and locking. It can be extremely painful when the knee locks, catches or pops.

If this is the situation a knee arthroscopy is indicated. The knee scope is completed to remove the loose or unstable pieces of articular cartilage. This is a pretty quick surgical procedure that takes about 15 minutes to complete. It does require a general anesthesia and the patient does go complete asleep for the procedure. There is typically not much pain associated with it and a quick recovery is standard. Usually within 10-14 days return to normal activity is achieved.

The knee arthroscopy done in a patient for knee arthritis will not improve range of motion, stiffness, straighten out the angled leg or regenerate new cartilage. The scope is performed to get rid of mechanical symptoms. The red arrows in the following image point to loose cartilage.