title: Sports Activity after Low-contact-stress Total Knee Arthroplasty - A long term follow-up study.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to provide comprehensive long-term data about sports activity levels in patients following total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and to determine the impact of pre-operative function, pain and specific performed sports on the results. 236 patients who have undergone TKA for severe osteoarthritis of the knee were asked to provide specific information regarding exercised types of sports before surgery and after at least 10 years following TKA. Pre- and postoperative function and pain were evaluated by the use of Tegner-, WOMAC- and VAS Score. After a mean of 14.9 years, a significant improvement regarding pain and function was observed. Pre-operative Tegner- and WOMAC scores revealed significant positive correlations with the post-operative Tegner-Score. Accordingly, a high percentage of patients (70.9%) stayed actively involved in sports. Nevertheless, the number of performing patients has decreased according to the sports impact. 71.3% continued practising low-impact-, 43.7% intermediate-impact sports whereas only 16.4% kept performing high impact sports. We conclude that TKA is highly effective in long-time pain reduction as well as improvement of function. Additionally, we found considerable sports activities preserved in the investigated series. However, sports activities in particular, seem to decrease according to the impact of sports.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medical University of Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Ines
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Vielgut
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medical University of Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Lukas
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Leitner
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medical University of Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kastner
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medical University of Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Roman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Radl
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medical University of Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Leithner
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Medical University of Graz, Austria.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sadoghi
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D019645:Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000534:rehabilitation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D013177:Sports / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*