You arrive at the hospital on the day of your knee replacement and stay in the hospital usually between 3 and 5 days total.  After surgery, you can be discharged to your home or to a rehabilitation facility.  If you elect to go home, physical therapy can be arranged at your home until you are able to travel to see a physical therapist at an out-patient facility.

Regional anesthesia will be used for your procedure, which involves freezing the legs as well as the use of a femoral nerve block (using local anesthetic to freeze the main nerve to the knee).  You are also sedated for the procedure with intravenous medication.  No general anesthetic is required. 

The operation is performed using an incision in the front of the knee.  Techniques for knee replacement surgery have advanced over the years, and smaller incisions with less dissection are now required, compared to previous years.  The operation involves replacing the end of the thigh bone and the top of the lower leg bone as well as the back of the knee cap with metal and plastic implants.  This eliminates the pain generated from the degenerative arthritic joint.  Your rehabilitation starts the day after surgery and you are encouraged to get up and put full weight on the leg as well as begin bending it and straightening it immediately.  It is critical to start bending and straightening the knee as soon as possible after surgery to regain range of motion.  Range of motion must be regained by 6-8 weeks after surgery, because after that time, scar tissue forms and regaining motion becomes more difficult.  Although it is uncomfortable to bend and straighten the knee in the first few weeks after surgery, this is critical to a successful result.  The use of pain medication as required is encouraged to allow you to regain motion.

Most patients can get around well with the assistance of a cane or walker by 2 weeks.  Between 2 and 3 months, most patients begin to feel much better, and by the end of 3 months after surgery, almost all patients feel much better than before the surgery.  Patients continue to improve until 6 months after surgery, and some continue to improve even after that point.

Risks of surgery include, but are not limited to, anesthesia, infection, re-operation, nerve or blood vessel injury, stiffness, implant loosening, instability and pain.