Home › Blog › Getting your Knee Replaced doesn’t Help Muscle Weakness

In terms of function, what is knee replacement effectiveness? A recent study asked an interesting and related question, “Does replacing the arthritic knee joint allow better use of the muscles around the knee?” This small study looked at knee arthritis patients and knee replacement patients for strength and power of the knee extensor and flexor muscles. While you would assume that replacing the painful knee would make a big difference in muscle activity around the joint, it didn’t. Both groups were the same on strength and power of the knee muscles. The upshot? While patients believe getting a knee replacement will solve many of their problems, it’s often just not the case. For example, some patients continue to have knee pain despite the knee replacement. In addition, new studies have raised questions about the fact that we really don’t know the overall outcome for patients in knee replacement surgery. Finally, patients’ don’t regain strength and power in the knee after you replace the joint.

Chris Centeno, MD is a specialist in regenerative medicine and the new field of Interventional Orthopedics. Centeno pioneered orthopedic stem cell procedures in 2005 and is responsible for a large amount of the published research on stem cell use for orthopedic applications. View Profile