Minimally Invasive Surgery

Dr. Gens Goodman, DO
Hip and Knee Replacement Surgery

There is a tremendous amount of information available to patients about minimally invasive knee surgery. Most of this is marketing material that is designed to make the surgery more appealing to patients. However, we do not focus just on the length of the incision, we focused on a team concept designed to speed recovery and return to work. This team approach included patient education, presurgical planning, less traumatic surgery, better anesthesia, pain control, and faster return of function. All patients are benefiting from these minimally invasive initiatives.

 We are using specially designed instruments that allow all patients to have the smallest incision possible. The main factor that determines the length of the incision is the patient’s height and weight. We must make the incision long enough to do your surgery correctly, safely, and in a timely manner. With this approach the length of the incision has not influenced patient’s recovery. In general, for patients that are not overweight the length of the incision is 3-7 inches.

Together we will determine which procedure is best for your knee. There are some patients that can benefit from all of the minimally invasive advances and go home after just one or two nights. These patients need to have appropriate body weight, be very motivated, and have a caregiver available to facilitate their early return home. For these patients we emphasize weightbearing as tolerated and ambulating with a single crutch or cane. To accomplish these goals therapy is started early and we will use narcotic pain medications only as needed. Instead, we will give you non-narcotic drugs such as celecoxib, a Cox-II anti-inflammatories to decrease your pain. In selected patients we will use short-term steroids to decrease the surgical inflammation and post-anesthesia nausea.Type your paragraph here.