Knee Surgery Info

Have you ever considered knee replacement surgery, but were scared off by the fact that some who’ve undergone the procedure actually ended up feeling worse after the surgery?

A new state of the art, computer-assisted procedure, performed in Austin, is literally giving patients a healthy leg to stand on.

“When I was younger, this would have been a lot of fun — boxing, not knee surgery,” Dr. Michael Haas, knee replacement candidate, said.

Haas is an expert on both. As a longtime ringside physician, he’s always enjoyed the sport of boxing.

Six previous knee surgeries had prevented Haas from taking his swings in the ring as a form of exercise.

“Oh, it was miserable. You can’t sleep at night is the problem. You go all through the day, and when you walk around, you don’t really notice that your knee is constantly hurting cause you get through the day. But then at night when you want to go to sleep, there’s nothing to do but sit, lie there and feel your knee, being a toothache and you can’t go to sleep. That’s the problem,” Haas said.

Then Haas learned of a new cutting-edge, computer-assisted, knee replacement surgery that uses med-tronic navigation, or electromagnetic waves, which help the surgeon cut more accurately.

“It gives us immediate feedback so we know where we are,” Seton Medical Director Dr. Jack Seaquist said.

Seaquist says the computer navigation software acts like a global positioning satellite.

“The computer knows where that white sites line is, where this anatomy, whether they’re fat, skinny, bow-legged, whatever they have, and the computer knows where that is,” Seaquist said.

Seaquist says computer-assisted navigation has allowed surgeons to significantly improve the traditional total joint replacement operation.

“In the past we would look at something and go, ‘That looks about right.’ With this, there isn’t, ‘That looks about right.’ It’s either right or it’s not right,” Seaquist said.

For Haas, surgical navigation has literally given him a leg up on the sport he’s come to love.

“It can really improve your quality of life if you’re suffering from a knee that you really can’t put weight on,” Haas said.

Seton Medical Center is one of only 15 hospitals in the country that train surgeons in this technique. It’s the only facility in Central Texas.

Right now, Seton only performs computer assisted navigation on knee replacements.

However, Seaquist says that soon the technology will be used for hip replacements, and quite possibly, ACL and bone trauma cases as well.

Knee Surgery

Knee Surgery News