Knee Arthroplasty

• Knee arthroplasty is one of the more common knee surgeries and is often referred to as a "total knee replacement."
  
  A total knee replacement is most often employed when the patient has extreme damage to cartilage tissue. In total knee replacement, the tissue is replaced with a plastic prosthetic.
  
  Cartilage damage was once considered catastrophic and debilitating before the advent of total knee replacement.
  
  

Unicompartmental Knee Replacement

• This style of knee replacement is more commonly referred to as a partial knee replacement.
  
  This type of surgery is implemented when the area of damaged cartilage is small enough that the surgeon can simply replace just one compartment of the knee. Similar to total knee replacement, the cartilage is replaced with a prosthetic.
  
  This is often used on patients with arthritis.
  
  The downfalls of partial knee replacement are that cartilage problems can also become chronic, so future surgeries on other parts of the knee may be needed if deterioration continues. Future operations become more difficult once a knee has already undergone partial knee replacement.
  
  The advantages include a much smaller incision and a shorter recovery period.
  
  

Bilateral Knee Replacement

• Bilateral knee replacement is when the patient has both knees operated on at the same time. Again, this is most commonly seen when the patient is suffering from severe arthritis.
  
  This is not a common surgery for athletes because it is rare that an athlete develops the same problem in both knees unless it is in fact arthritis.
  
  

Minimally Invasive Surgery

• During the 1990s several techniques have been developed to keep incisions small and penetration into the body to a minimum in knee surgeries.
  
  These techniques have made it possible for the surgeon to minimize the amount of soft-tissue dissected during the surgery.
  
  The downfall of minimally invasive surgery is that it is often hard to complete, and not always possible depending on the severity of the athlete's injury.
  
  

Recovery

• Once a knee replacement is finished, the patient will usually stay in the hospital between two and six days. During that time, the patient will receive physical therapy to help her adapt to the prosthetic.
  
  After a surgery like knee replacement, an athlete may be on crutches for up to six weeks or as few as three weeks.