A recent development finds an alternative to postoperative pain management in knee replacement surgery that appears to offer more effective pain relief and potentially speedier recovery. Researchers found that when they injected “a newer long-acting numbing medicine called liposomal bupivacaine into the tissue surrounding the knee during surgery…[p]atients had pain relief for up to two days after surgery and better knee function compared with the traditional method." One of the study’s authors noted that “many patients were able to walk comfortably within hours after surgery.”
It is estimated that more than half of American adults diagnosed with knee arthritis will have a knee replacement at some point. Given the prevalence of knee replacement surgery both in the general patient and worker’s compensation patient populations, any development that can improve pain relief and increase early knee function could have a profound impact. Prescription pain reliever abuse continues to vex society and intraoperative techniques that can reduce the need for postoperative narcotic pain relief can only help the problem. In addition, faster restoration of knee function has the potential to speed rehabilitation and end of healing. If this new technique fulfills its early promise, it could have a significant and positive effect on reducing costs and recovery time of knee replacements. In the worker’s compensation setting, this would be a welcome development.
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