AAOS: Most knee replacement patients return to same jobs

(HealthDay)—Most patients who undergo total knee arthroplasty (TKA) return to work, with the majority successfully returning to the same job, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, held from March 19 to 23 in Chicago.

Adolf V. Lombardi Jr., M.D., from Joint Implant Surgeons Inc. in New Albany, Ohio, and colleagues conducted a multicenter study involving patients of working age (18 to 60 years) who underwent TKA one to three years earlier to examine the return to work. Complete data were collected for 661 patients (average age, 54.2 years) by an independent third party survey center.

The researchers found that 74.6 percent of participants were employed in the three months before TKA. After surgery, 91.1 percent returned to work, 93.3 percent of whom returned to the same job. Based on the labor category of the patients jobs, return to work was 92.3 percent for sedentary jobs, 79.2 percent for light jobs, 89.0 percent for medium jobs, 87.8 percent for heavy jobs, and 78.2 percent for very heavy jobs. Compared with females, males were significantly more likely to return to work (82.3 versus 73.7 percent).

"In this group of young, active patients, most returned to work at their usual occupation," the authors write. "While those with sedentary occupations had the highest return to work rate, even those with very heavy jobs returned to work almost 80 percent of the time."