Dr. Joshua Jacobs, orthopedics surgery chief at Rush University Medical Center and president of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in Chicago, holds a model of a cementless hip replacement. About two of every 100 Americans now has an artificial joint, doctors are reporting. That’s 4.5 million with a new hip and 6.7 million with a new knee, according to the first major study to look at how common these operations have become. Results were reported Tuesday, March 11, 2014 at an American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons conference in New Orleans. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Total knee replacement surgery patient Mary Ann Tuft, 79, walks in her apartment in Chicago. She said her right knee was miserable for a decade before she had it replaced in 2005. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Tuft sits in her apartment in Chicago. “I live in downtown Chicago, take a lot of walks along the beach. I could barely walk a block” by the time the operation was done, she said. “I’m very social, but I found going to cocktail receptions where you had to stand a long time, I would just avoid them.” After the operation, “I felt better pretty much right from the beginning,” she said. “You don’t even know you have it in there, which is amazing.” (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Dr. Jacobs holds a model of a tri-compartmental total knee replacement. More than 600,000 knees and about 400,000 hips are replaced in the U.S. each year. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
