Your knee is the largest joint in your body. Essentially, the knee is a hinge that joins your thigh bone (femur) to your shin bone (tibia). Cartilage provides a cushion between the bones preventing them from grinding directly against one another when you bend and extend your leg. Muscles and tendons connect the bones and keep the joint stable. When the knee is healthy, all of these things work together unnoticed, gliding smoothly and without pain.
Knees can become painful due mostly to osteoarthritis or, less commonly, to inflammatory arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis. Osteoarthritis can develop in the knee joint after an injury, excess body weight, a genetic predisposition or even wear and tear. Over time, it damages and wears away the cartilage inside the knee joint. Eventually, the knee bones rub directly against one another, causing pain and further damage of the joint.
Physical therapy, exercise, loosing weight, using a brace or cane, and taking pain relieving medications may help, but usually the effects are often temporary.
Surgical replacement of the damaged portion of the knee is a long term and widely available treatment option that is performed on more than a quarter million people per year in the United States. Total knee replacement, also known as total knee arthroplasty, is a proven technique with a high success rate. Over the last 30 years, total knee replacement has become the accepted procedure to address advanced arthritis of the knee. The procedure has been proven to be highly successful at alleviating pain and restoring mobility to the joint. Within the last few years, there has been an interest in performing total knee replacement in a less invasive manner. Traditional knee replacement surgery can have a lengthy and painful rehabilitation.
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