5.10.2017
According to the surgeons from Seligenstadt, they were the first in Germany to start practicing innovative minimally invasive hip joint surgery that allows a patient go home on the same day.
SELIGENSTADT. Surgery on the hip joint is in the morning and, in the evening, you can go home: specialists from the private clinic Emma in Seligenstadt use a new technique for hip joint surgery. According to Dr. Manfred Krieger, now it is possible to discharge patients on the day of the surgery, thanks to AMIS (Anterior Minimal Invasion Surgery). Manfred Krieger works as an orthopedist and a trauma therapists at the Emma Clinic. He believes a minimally invasive method, compared with the standard, is associated with fewer complications and pain and helps to preserve the muscles.
With AMIS, the anterior access to the joint is used in contrast to the back or side approach applied in the conventional joint surgery. In this case, the muscles located above the hip joint stay intact. A surgeon shifts aside the muscles and conducts the operation through the natural aperture of the muscle bundle. As a result, only the muscular membrane and skin incision are sutured. “The duration of the operation is reduced from approximately three hours to one," says Dr. Krieger.
With AMIS, surgeons do not use wound drainage, bladder catheters and splints. The drainage and catheters can inflict harm to a patient, as they enable microbes to penetrates into the body, and, usually, doctors use drainage and catheters habitually just for convenience, but not for medical reasons, says Dr. Krieger,
According to the orthopedist, he does not put a “knight's armor” on a patient, preventing him/ her from moving. Dr. Krieger performs about 300 surgeries per year on the hip joint and knee joint and asserts that mobility have to be restored shortly after surgery. In, approximately, one hour after the operation, the patient gets up and takes a few first steps. “The longer a patient stays in bed, the higher the risk of complications,” Dr. Krieger explains. He calls the immediate load on the joint a rapid recovery.
The patient has 3-4 physiotherapeutic procedures a day until reaching all the conditions for patient’s discharge, such as no pain, the ability to go 300 steps without stopping and climb a few steps up the stairs. According to Dr. Krieger, 90% of patients can do this within two days after the surgery. Quite many people need only one day, so doctors call this method Hip in a Day. An average patient can walk at a fast pace six weeks later, says the doctor.
Dr. Krieger believes that with AMIS the risk of complications is lesser, but he does not mention any specific figures. In the Netherlands, he said, the probability of re-hospitalization is 10%, which is also realistic for Germany.
