DAVE WATTS, MD
Orthopedic Surgeon
Minimally invasive treatments for hip injuries
If you’ve ever had hip pain treatment, you know that it can be painful and invasive. No matter how great your hip doctor is, it can be difficult to get treated for hip and joint pain without going through a lot of painful surgery and long recovery times. However, in many cases, surgery isn’t the only way to reduce the pain. If your Sioux Falls orthopedic doctor or clinic recommends less invasive surgical options, it’s always worth it to learn more. Having a less invasive treatment could help reduce joint pain without putting you through long recovery times and tons of physical therapy. If you’re trying to minimize hip pain without undergoing an expensive, drawn-out procedure, here are a few alternatives to ask your doctor about.
Arthroscope Surgery
A few years ago, it used to require an open surgery simply to see what was going on inside the surgical site before any procedure could be performed. Today, thanks to a small device called an arthroscope, doctors can get a crystal clear image of your hip injury using only the smallest incision. The arthroscope doesn’t just work as a camera. Once inserted, it can do the work of shaving off obtrusive bone, removing shards of broken bone, as well as stitching up muscle or joint tears. If the problem requires open surgery, the arthroscope will be able to show doctors exactly what’s needed to resolve the problem. The small tool is able to fix a host of problems without creating the need for open surgery and long, drawn-out recovery times. Using the smallest of incisions and the most precise possible tools and treatment, arthroscope surgery is able to take care of labral tears, cartilage injuries, and floating bodies without forcing patients to spend tons of time recovering in the hospital.
Robotically-Assisted Surgery
Thanks to advances in technology, certain surgeries can be streamlined with the help of “smart” implants and robotic assistance. Using a hyper-precise arm that the surgeon guides during the procedure, robotically-assisted surgery can help the doctor get into small, hard-to-reach areas to perform extremely delicate operations. This doesn’t just increase the precision of any given procedure, it allows the wound site to heal that much faster due to the minimally-invasive nature of the surgery. Certain smart implants, such as robotic hip implants, can even adjust themselves to perfectly align with the bone and muscle during surgery, unlike traditional implants, which can shift and dislodge after a surgical site is closed up.
Small Incisions
Both minimally invasive surgery and robotically-assisted surgery are ideal for patients who don’t want to deal with a lot of healing and recovery time. Using small, precise incisions to treat hip injuries, both surgery types allow for extremely fast healing without a lot of physical therapy and rehab needed. While hip injuries are still to be taken seriously and given a lot of time to heal, creating smaller incisions allows patients to get back to normal more quickly, and without as much of the residual pain and stiffness that traditional open surgery creates.