Today I attended the Duke Orthopedic clinic once again with Dr. Schweitzer. However, today’s clinic was at the Duke Orthopedics Cary location. We spent the day meeting with patients to diagnose a current injury or to meet with the patient post-operation.
Today, I learned about the different operations to fix ankle arthritis. The first option is to fuse the ankle, stopping any motion of the ankle joint where the arthritis is located. Since the ankle joint is no longer moving, the bones in the ankle where there is a lack or cartilage will not rub against each other anymore. The second option to fix ankle arthritis is an ankle replacement. For the ankle replacement procedure, an MRI first needs to be taken to determine the strength of the bone. If the bone is strong, a smaller ankle replacement can be used. However, if the bone is weak, the ankle replacement will need to be larger and inserted much further into the bone to insure stability. Fusing the ankle will not allow for any movement in the ankle joint but is almost 100% effective and the technology has been around for many years. The ankle replacement is newer technology so doctors do not know the long term effectiveness of this surgery, however, ankle replacements are 85% effective after 10 years.
The image on the left shows one type of ankle replacement while the image on the right shows one way that the ankle can be fused.