Page 155 - The value of total hip and knee arthroplasties for patients

Return to work after total hip and knee arthroplasty: results from a clinical study
Preoperative work status and characteristics of working and non-working patients
The preoperative work status of patients under 65 years is described in Table 1. The mean age of the 122 THA patients was 57.7 years (6.3 SD) and of the 120 TKA patients 57.4 years (5.8 SD).There were 70 females (57 %) in theTHA group and 79 (66 %) in the TKA group. Preoperatively, 71 of 122 THA patients (58 %) and 64 of 120 TKA patients (53 %) were working; 14 THA patients (11 %) and 11 TKA patients (8 %) were unemployed and/ or looking for a job; 10 THA patients (8 %) and 14 TKA patients (12 %) were disabled, of those 10 THA patients (8 %) and 8 TKA patients (13 %) received a full disability pension; 2 THA patients (3 %) and 5 TKA patients (8 %) received disability benefits because of hip or knee impairments; 11 THA patients (9 %) and 18 TKA patients (15 %) were doing household and/ or volunteer work; and 16 THA patients (13 %) and 13 TKA patients (8 %) were retired (see Table 1).
Table 1 also describes the clinical characteristics of working and non-working patients
undergoing THA and TKA. In the THA group, working patients were significantly more
often male, though in theTKA group female. In both groups, the working patients were
significantly younger than the non-working patients, whereas in the TKA group the
working patients were higher educated and in theTHA group the Oxford Hip Score
was significantly lower in working patients. No other statistically significant differences
regarding the characteristics of working and non-working patients were seen. 8
Characteristics of preoperative work situation in working patients
Table 2 describes the characteristics of preoperative work situation in the working 71 THA and 64 TKA patients. Both in THA and in TKA patients, most preoperatively working patients were wage earners. The mean number of working hours preoperatively was 32 h in THA patients (SD 12.7) and 31 h in TKA patients (SD 12.7). In the 63 and 55 THA and TKA patients in whom both the preoperative and postoperative number of working hours were known, paired comparisons showed a statistically significant decrease (p = 0.04 and p = 0.02). Of the working patients, 43 THA patients (61 %) and 36 TKA patients (56 %) had not been absent from work in the past year related to their hip or knee complaints.TwelveTHA patients (17 %) and 12 TKA patients (19 %) had been absent from work for more than 4 weeks. Fifty-seven working THA patients (80 %) and 51 working TKA patients (80 %) indicated that their work had not been adjusted because of the hip or knee complaints preoperatively.
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