title: [Locomotive syndrome and frailty. Total knee arthroplasty supports active life of the elderly].
abstract: For a society with an aging population, it is important to extend healthy life expectancy. Knee arthroplasty is one of the most successful and beneficial treatments for osteoarthritic knees, helping the elderly improve their activities of daily life. Previous reports have proved health-related quality of life improves dramatically with this surgery. In particular, pain and physical functioning scores improve significantly. Although the preoperative physical activity of each patient does affect the postoperative activity level, sufficient improvements can be expected for this procedure on the elderly. These effective improvements make the number of knee arthroplasties increase year to year. The elderly have high risks of postoperative medical complications. However, long term results are comparable or superior to those in younger patients. In elderly patients, pre-existing conditions should be carefully controlled, and postoperative complications, including infection and thrombosis, should be treated prophylactically to promote safety and postoperative recovery.
authors.affiliation: Section of Cartilage Regeneration, Graduate School, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshifumi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Ichiro
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Sekiya
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Muneta
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D019645:Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee; D016330:Frail Elderly; D006801:Humans; D020370:Osteoarthritis, Knee / Q000601:surgery*; D011788:Quality of Life; D016896:Treatment Outcome