John Birko’s knee had osteoarthritis, was painful and severely limited his day-to-day activities.
While his knee felt as though it was about 80 years old, Birko was 49. And like many other baby boomers today, he was not ready to slow down and instead decided to have surgery.
“Having knee replacement surgery made an extraordinary difference in my life,” says Birko, now 51. “The day after surgery, I felt terrific. I had forgotten what it was like to not be in pain. I was on top of the world.”
The number of baby boomers who are opting for knee replacement surgery earlier in life is growing at an exponential rate, says Dr. J. David Blaha, an orthopaedic surgeon at the U-M Health System.
Only a few years ago, doctors annually performed between 300,000-350,000 knee replacement surgeries. Today, that number has risen to a staggering 500,000. And 10 years from now, experts estimate there could be as many as 3.2 million annual knee replacement surgeries.
While knee replacement surgery does have a positive impact on a patient’s quality of life, Blaha and other experts in the field worry that the demand for new knees will far outpace the availability of surgeons trained to perform the procedure.
“A recent study that looked at trends in joint replacement found that although the number of orthopaedic specialists who do joint replacement is going to increase by about 2 percent, the need for orthopaedic surgeons is going to increase by 500 percent,” he says. “That’s a problem of epic proportions.”
The reason for the increase can be attributed to baby boomers wanting to maintain an active lifestyle. Although knee replacement surgery allows patients to do many of their daily activities more easily, Blaha says surgeons still don’t have a good estimate for how long knee implants will last especially now since so many patients are getting new knees at a younger age.
“We want joint replacements to last for more than 20 years. But one of the problems is, that no matter how good we get with statistics, it still takes 20 years to get 20 year results,” says Blaha, professor of orthopaedic surgery at the Medical School.
