If you have a total knee replacement surgery planned, you’d be doing yourself a huge favor by losing weight before having this procedure done. A report in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (Oct. 2012) says that obese patients are at higher risk of complications following total knee replacement surgery.
These complications (including infections) are correlated to the need for revision surgery.
“Orthopaedic operations can technically be more difficult in obese people,” explains Gino M.M.J. Kerkhoffs, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at Academic Medical Center Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam. He led this latest study, and continues, “and it is important for us to know whether there is a higher complication rate in the obese, and if the long-term outcome is worse.”
Weight loss prior to total knee replacement surgery will benefit the patient because, according to Dr. Kerkhoffs’ investigation, obese patients have a doubled rate of postoperative infection; obese people have a doubled rate of long-term surgical revision requirements.
The report also advises that obese people, who are scheduled for a total knee replacement, should make a plan to lose weight prior to the procedure. In fact, the paper goes one step further by pointing out that the orthopedic surgeons themselves should be prepared to recommend to their obese TKR patients, before surgery, professionals who can assist them with losing weight.
When an obese person with painful osteoarthritis in the knee hears that they should first lose weight to lower the risk of postoperative complications, the first thing that may come to mind is: “How do I lose weight if I can barely walk with this painful knee?!
I’m a certified personal trainer. A re-evaluation of eating habits is in order, and even if the patient goes from 5,000 calories a day to 2,000 calories a day (a six pound per week weight loss), the variable of exercise should be put at the forefront – and this can be accomplished even if they have a painful knee!
What many obese people don’t know is that the best way to lose weight is through strength training, not aerobics! Upper body strength training can be done in a seated position, sparing pain in the knee!
The obese person will lose significantly more weight performing the bench press, dumbbell chest press, seated chest press, lat pull-down, seated row and shoulder presses than they will struggling through hours and hours and hours of pedaling, walking while hanging onto a treadmill, bouncing around in a swimming pool, and attending NIA, Zumba, belly dance and other dance aerobics classes – which can bring on pain in their knee.
Yes, an obese person, who needs total knee replacement surgery, not only SHOULD lose weight beforehand, but can easily accomplish this through strength training. Check out the articles below to learn how to make strength training ignite serious fat loss:
- ·: sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121024141631.htm
