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. 2018 Jun 1:32:279-283.

Decreased Time to Return to Work Using Robotic-Assisted Unicompartmental Knee Arthroplasty Compared to Conventional Techniques

Alexander H Jinnah  1 , Marco A Augart  1 , Daniel L Lara  1 , Riyaz H Jinnah  2 , Gary G Poehling  1 , Chukwuweike U Gwam  1 , Johannes F Plate  1
Affiliations

Decreased Time to Return to Work Using Robotic-Assisted Unicompartmental Knee Arthroplasty Compared to Conventional Techniques

Alexander H Jinnah et al. Surg Technol Int. .

Abstract

Introduction: Unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA) is a commonly used procedure for patients suffering from debilitating unicompartmental knee arthritis. For UKA recipients, robotic-assisted surgery has served as an aid in improving surgical accuracy and precision. While studies exist detailing outcomes of robotic UKA, to our knowledge, there are no studies assessing time to return to work using robotic-assisted UKA. Thus, the purpose of this study was to prospectively assess the time to return to work and to achieve the level of work activity following robotic-assisted UKA to create recommendations for patients preoperatively. We hypothesized that the return to work time would be shorter for robotic-assisted UKAs compared with TKAs and manual UKAs, due to more accurate ligament balancing and precise implementation of the operative plan.

Materials and methods: Thirty consecutive patients scheduled to undergo a robotic-assisted UKA at an academic teaching hospital were prospectively enrolled in the study. Inclusion criteria included employment at the time of surgery, with the intent on returning to the same occupation following surgery and having end-stage knee degenerative joint disease (DJD) limited to the medial compartment. Patients were contacted via email, letter, or phone at two, four, six, and 12 weeks following surgery until they returned to work. The Baecke physical activity questionnaire (BQ) was administered to assess patients' level of activity at work pre- and postoperatively. Statistical analysis was performed using SAS Enterprise Guide (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, North Carolina) and Excel® (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington). Descriptive statistics were calculated to assess the demographics of the patient population. Boxplots were generated using an Excel® spreadsheet to visualize the BQ scores and a two-tailed t-test was used to assess for differences between pre- and postoperative scores with alpha 0.05.

Results: The mean time to return to work was 6.4 weeks (SD=3.4, range 2-12 weeks), with a median time of six weeks. There was no difference seen in the mean pre- and postoperative BQ scores (2.70 vs. 2.69, respectively; p=0.87).

Conclusion: The findings of the current study suggest that most patients can return to work six weeks following robotic-assisted UKA which appears to be shorter than conventional UKA and TKA. Future level I studies are needed to verify our study findings.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Baecke Questionnaire work index scores preoperatively and postoperatively showing that patients were, on average, able to return to similar work activities six weeks after robotic-assisted UKA.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Baecke Questionnaire (work index) scores before and after robotic-assisted UKA.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Our results show that with robotic-assisted UKA, patients return to work faster than what is reported in the literature for TKA and manual UKA.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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