Tags
Food & Drug Administration, Hip implants, Hip Replacement, hip replacement options, joint replacement, knee implants, knee replacement, New Artificial Joint Designs, New York City, NewYork, Sedrakyan, Weill Cornell Medical College
New Hip, Knee Implants Are Not Better Than Old Versions.
New Artificial Joint Designs Are Not Better: Study
Thursday, 25 Sep 2014 04:19 PM
There is not much hard evidence that new artificial joint devices, including ceramic-on-ceramic bearings for hip replacement and high flexion knee replacement, are better than older options – and in some cases they may be worse – according to a new review.
Senior author Dr. Art Sedrakyan and his team reviewed clinical trials, comparative studies and registries for evidence that five new implantable device innovations were effective and safe.
Similar research published in 2011 led to manufacturers withdrawing some metal-on-metal hip replacement options, which turned out to have higher failure rates than others because the metal parts rubbing together created debris that could lead to inflammation and tissue damage.
“Back in 2011 when we published the first paper on metal-on-metal hips, hundreds of people contacted me and asked if they should be worried about hip replacement in general,” said Sedrakyan, of the Patient Centered Comparative Effectiveness Program and U.S. Food and Drug Administration Medical Device Epidemiology Science and Infrastructure Center at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.
“The answer is ‘no’ because the procedure is generally very safe and outcomes are generally good,” he said.
However, new product designs tend to be based on engineering data more than on clinical data, he said. It seems, logically, like a new design may have an advantage over the old, but that often isn’t supported by evidence with real patients, he said.
Full article link: New Hip, Knee Implants Are Not Better Than Old Versions.
Earl, I hope you don’t mind me pinging into you blog. You can delete it if you like.
I treat complex pain problems in my office with CAMs options like cold lasers, physical therapy, acupuncture, dry/wet needling and trigger point injections. There seem to be a disconnection with what our hunter gatherer ancestors did for pain tens of thousands of years ago or for that matter 50 years ago as it relates to healing, medicine and wellness. From this experience I have concluded that pain is not what you read in textbooks.
In a real world sense, “all pain has a cause so all pain has to be treated with the appropriate therapy.” So, if you review and rethink the definition of pain you can find glitches in the modern view, definition and classifications of pain. To help me and my patients, I’ve tried to deconstruct all the causes of pain into 3 simple categories.
Structural —This pain is a sign of danger, like cancer, aneurysms, infections, tumors and malfunctions. These need immediate care in a hospital or ER. Once treated the person is restored as best as modern medicine can offer to health. With minimal minor or no pain.
Injury type pain —This is what happens when you fall like twisted knees, ankles, and broken bones. These should automatically repair by nature with little help from us. 3-8 weeks is all that is needed for this pain to heal. As the healing progressed the pain should slowly disappear. So if you still have pain after 8-12 weeks you have an additional pain type on top of the injury. In essence, if you still have pain 4 months after an injury, the injury may have launched an added pain type. Vital! Bones, joints, cartilage, meniscus and intervertebral discs do not produce intense pain signals so injury or skeletal parts can NOT cause long-term agonizing pain. So you or your doctors should not think that what is visible on the X-ray is causing your pain, within this pain paradigm. REPEAT! Bones, joints and cartilage, meniscus or intervertebral discs do not cause long-term pain.
Nonstructural type pain — This is the pain that we are all talking about but the upper echelons of medicine and society have disregarded and discounted this pain as “no-big-deal.” This pain is the pain we all have to deal with in our a daily lives. This is the pain that produces very loud and intense pain signals and causes ongoing aches, pains and stiffness.
This pain as certain charesticists:
To be able to treat all of my patients who come in with;
People complaints are off the chart, very rare bizarre symptoms unexplainable numbness, itching or burning.
People would say that their doctors would just stare at the chart and not look at them and seem absolutely baffled, confused, bewildered.
The pain prompt doctor to invent new modern syndromes like “POTS.”
The medications which are suppose to help would fail, made them sicker, have odd reactions with no definite explanations.
Their metabolic and immune functions are broken or out of whack leading to odd Flus, Colds, Sinusitis, digestive problems, elimination oddity, sensory and nerve quirks and skin infections. Immune specialist will offer IV immune infusions with marginal relief.
Nonstructural pain has a formal name that was in use over 50 years ago, Myofascial pain and Dysfunction. This is the pain of life from plain old life. This pain is no big deal if you catch and nip it in the bud early. If left untreated or undertreated it can grow into a monster of a deal as the stresses accumulate to reaches a certain level. Them it will be the biggest deal that will destroy your wellbeing. This is the pain that will sneaks up on you little by little until it awakens you from sleep and distracts you from your routines. This is the pain that does not respond to the usual types of care offered by modern day conventional medicine.
Today we can group all the these treatment options under the Traditional/CAM umbrella of Myofascial Pain and Dysfunctions. These treatments are called with Myofascial Release Therapies. Please visualize all these therapies on a spectrum; Self care with Wellness, magnesium supplementation, simple stretching, yoga, massage, traction or inversions, Rolfing, Active Tissue Release, John F. Barnes Myofascial Unwinding and Chiropractic adjustments. If needed, therapy must be stepped-up to Acupuncture, Myofascial Acupuncture and all other various types, dry needling and Gunn-Intramuscular Stimulation. The most aggressive of the group are Travell/Simon hypodermic needling and various other Bio/Prolo/Neural hypodermic injections.
Ever wonder why back surgeries fails, patients continue to complain of pain after joint replacement surgery, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome release fails, frozen of a joint (shoulder) ruins peoples lives, face pain patients do not respond to open brain surgery, jaw pain options fail, vertigo is recalcitrant, Migraines become stubborn, diabetics complaint bitterly of pins and needles despite medications?
This is the reason.