When you get new tires on your car, it’s important that they are balanced and in alignment. This will keep the car from vibrating or pulling in one direction and help the tires last longer.
But you wouldn’t expect your mechanic to check tire alignment and balance just by eyeballing it. They have specialized tools to help them. It’s the same when the joints in your knees or hips are replaced.
For many years, surgeons largely relied on bony landmarks and their intuition to make sure joint implants were placed in the correct position and properly aligned, leading to a straight leg. But not every person’s body is the same, so even an experienced surgeon could miss the mark by just a little. Being even slightly out of position can lead to an implant wearing down unevenly, requiring a new one years before expected.
With people living longer and more people having joint replacement surgery at a younger age, it’s more important than ever to do what we can to extend the life of these implants and reduce the number of future procedures a person may need.
Related reading: Am I too young for knee or hip replacement?
Thankfully, many surgical teams, including ours, now have surgical navigation systems that help position and align new joints with a degree of accuracy we can’t get by eyeballing it.
‘GPS’ for knee and hip replacement
In traditional joint replacement surgeries such as knee replacement, we would use simple tools such as alignment jigs and rods inserted along the thigh bone (femur) to help us see and feel when the knee was properly positioned and aligned.
A surgical navigation system is similar to a GPS system in a car. We input where in the limb we want to go, and the system shows us, in real time, the location and movement of our instruments. We can clearly see and test position, alignment and ligament tension every step of the way.
