A study of functional outcome after Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty in elderly patients

Introduction: Osteoarthritis is thought to be the most prevalent chronic joint disease. Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) is now a reliable treatment for severe arthritis and is now commonly done for end stage arthritis of knee. The results of TKA are predictable in majority of cases, but with geriatric population, arthritis is often associated with other co-morbid condition along with age, which makes the results of TKA less predictable. So, the present study was conducted to evaluate the clinical and functional outcome of TKA in this subset of population. Materials and methods: This prospective study was done at a tertiary care center of Mumbai. A total of 30 consecutive patients who consented and underwent TKA were assessed clinically, functionally and radiologically using the Knee Society Score at an interval of 6 weeks and 6 months. All the data was entered in Microsoft Excel sheet 2013 and analyzed using appropriate statistical tests using SPSS software ver. 21 Results: The average pre-op Knee Clinical Score (KCS) was 28.13 which improved to an average post-op score of 95.38. At 6 month follow up, 26 patients (87%) had Excellent, 3 patients (10%) had Good, and 1 patient (3%) poor results as per KCS. The average pre-op Knee Functional Score (KFS) was 41.53, which improved to a post-op score of 88.49. At 6 month follow up, 16 patients (53%) had Excellent, 11 patients (37%) had Good, 2 patients (7%) had Fair and 1 patient (3%) had poor results as per KFS. Conclusion: Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty improves the functional ability of the old patient above 70 years and the ability of the patient to get back to pre-disease state, which is to have a pain free mobile joint, as reflected by the improvement in the post-op Knee Clinical Score and Knee Functional Score.