When home-care techniques, weight loss and medications aren t enough to relieve symptoms, your doctor may recommend surgery. In the past 20 years, joint replacement surgery has become the most important surgical treatment for arthritis. In joint replacement surgery, a surgeon removes the damaged joint and replaces it with a plastic or metal device called a prosthesis. The hip joint is the most commonly replaced joint. But today implants can replace shoulder, knee, finger, ankle and even elbow joints.
Joint replacement is most successful in large joints such as hips and knees.
It can help you get back on your feet and resume an active, pain-free lifestyle. In smaller hand joints, it can improve appearance and comfort but may not significantly improve your joint s mobility. Surgeons can also reposition bones to help correct deformities. And they can permanently fuse bones in a joint to increase stability and reduce pain. The fused joint can bear weight but has no flexibility.