Knee arthroscopy, a minimally invasive technique
Written by:What is knee arthroscopy?
Arthroscopy is a surgical technique that allows us to explore the interior of the joints through a system of optics connected to a viewing screen. It has the advantage of being minimally invasive and diagnosing the injuries that we find within the joint and treating or assisting in the treatment of the injuries that we find ourselves.
What is the operation about?
Unlike conventional surgery, in order to visualize the interior of the joint, a large surgical approach must be performed. Arthroscopy allows us to introduce, through small incisions, both the surgical material and the optics that allow us to visualize the interior of the joint.. In the first place we make the diagnosis and through this technique we can treat many injuries that occur in the knee. The most frequent are meniscus injuries, ligament injuries, the famous anterior cruciate ligament, cartilage lesions or chondral lesions as well as many times can help to reduce fractures very correctly or much more correctly. of warm as of femur.
How long does the patient recover?
One of the main advantages of arthroscopic surgery is that it allows the patient to recover faster. In the case of the knee, the treatment of meniscal lesions without the arthroscopic technique is not understood. Traditionally there was no choice but to make a comprehensive approach and remove the entire meniscus, today thanks to arthroscopy we can make small meniscal resections that allow faster functional recovery of the knee and avoid degenerative signs in the future. Another of the great advantages of arthroscopy is that the postoperative pain is lower since the surgical approach is minimal. From the aesthetic point of view the scars are minimal too and the functional recovery is much faster. This is especially important in patients who are athletes, not only for professionals who need or have the urgent need to return to sports soon, but also for normal people who want to return to their activity, their normal life, their activity soon. work or your sporting activity as soon as possible. Arthroscopy accelerates all these types of recoveries, making them much faster.
A normal arthroscopy is performed by major outpatient surgery, at most one night of admission and the next day the patient can walk with the help of walking sticks to his home and live practically normal. In the case of athletes, it also depends on the degree of the injury or the type of intervention that has been performed, but recovery is much faster than with classical surgery.
