If your mother or grandmother had a knee or hip replacement, the odds are good she was in her late 60s or 70s when she opted for the surgery, and it was a “last resort” decision — either get a new knee or start using a cane or a wheelchair.

That’s not today’s joint replacement surgery. With the baby boom generation hitting their 60s the age at which joints start to hurt and ultimately give out  more and more people are seeking knee and hip replacements to maintain their active lifestyle.

Joint Replacements to Maintain Quality of Life

“It used to be about doing the things you needed to do — literally, being able to walk,” says David Mayman, clinical co-director of the computer-assisted surgery center at New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery. The hospital is world-renowned for orthopedic surgery and pioneered the first total knee replacement.

“Now, patients are coming to see us saying, ‘I can’t do the things I want to do. I can’t play golf or tennis anymore.’ We’re seeing more and more patients in their 50s and even some in their 40s,” he tells Todo en Medicamentos. “Where these people used to wait and try to hold out another year or two or five, now they just want to get it done and get on with their lives.”

Joint Replacements in Women

Arthritis is the leading cause of joint replacements. And because women have higher rates of arthritis than men, some 60% of joint replacement surgeries are performed on women.

The demand from women has even sparked a whole new industry in “gender-specific joint replacement,” with several companies offering knees that purport to be designed for a woman’s anatomy.

Whether a “woman’s knee” is markedly better than a knee that works for men or women is debatable, says Mayman. “There are some anatomical differences between men’s and women’s joints, but geometrically, they’re very similar,” he says. “I don’t know that the literature suggests any better outcomes with gender-specific replacements. But these devices do highlight the fact that there are different types of joint replacements, and anatomically, you need one that fits your bone.”

More information at Todo en Medicamentos.

Rheumatoid arthritis researchers have created a new steroid pill that works overnight to ease morning joint stiffness.

Rheumatoid arthritis patients take the pill at night. The pill releases its prednisone four hours later, in time to curb morning joint stiffness.

The new prednisone pill works better than the traditional formulation at reducing morning joint stiffness, a new study shows.

The study included 288 adult rheumatoid arthritis patients in Germany and Poland. Half of them got the new prednisone pill. The other patients got traditional prednisone, which works immediately.

The patients kept daily diaries about their joint pain during the 12-week study. In those diaries, patients reported less morning joint stiffness within two weeks of starting to take the new prednisone pill.

Side effects were similar for patients taking either type of prednisone.

The researchers — who included rheumatology professor Frank Buttgereit, of Germany’s Charite University Medicine Berlin — report the results in tomorrow’s edition of The Lancet.

The findings are “clearly relevant,” but longer studies are needed to see if the new prednisone pill maintains its effectiveness beyond three months, says an editorial published with the study.

The new formulation may also prove useful in treating other conditions, say the editorialists, including Johannes Bijlsma, PhD, of the rheumatology and clinical immunology department of Utrecht Medical Center in the Netherlands.

Buttgereit’s study was funded by a German branch of the drug company Merck. Buttgereit and colleagues note financial ties to various drug companies including Merck. Editorialist Bijlsma has served as a consultant to Nitec, the Swiss company developing the new prednisone pill.

More information at Todo en Medicamentos.