Functional outcomes and strength measures in minimally invasive total hip arthroplasty up to six weeks post surgery

Abstract

Purpose-Total hip arthroplasty (THA) has been crucial in restoring and maintaining quality of life in the active elder and geriatric populations. Traditional THA approaches have been used with great success over the past 70 years. Technical medical advances have allowed new minimally invasive (MI) surgical techniques to be developed to manage THA recovery in a more effective and abbreviated time. These MI surgeries reduce pain and restore function more rapidly by reducing perioperative tissue damage. Therefore the purpose of this study is to assess functional ability in MI-THA patients at pre-operation (PRE) three and six weeks post-operation (POST) compared to a control group. Methods-A 2x3 repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) design was used to compare 16 participants, 6 direct anterior (DA)-THA procedure participants and 10 controls. Function (Timed Up-and-Go and Trendelenburg test) and strength measures were collected at the following three time periods: pre-operation (PRE), three weeks (POST3) and six weeks (POST6). Results-Repeated measures ANOVA results revealed no significant differences between groups or across time for either of the functional tests. Significant differences (p<0.05) were revealed between groups on all strength measures. Results revealed a significant difference across data collection periods for three strength measures. All strength measures were no longer significantly different at POST6, except hip external rotation. Conclusions-Within the limitation of this study and considering the small sample size we conclude that MI DA-THA patients were able to achieve normal hip strength by six weeks post-surgery except for external rotation. Also, functional testing results revealed no significant difference between the MI DA-THA group and controls at any data collection period.