Bluewater Health is using a leading-edge technique to cut hip surgery recovery times in half.
Dr. Nick Matlovich recently performed Sarnia-Lambton's first "Direct Anterior Total Hip Replacement". He says the patient, Jace Kohlmeier, fully recovered in just a few weeks, compared to the traditional six to 12 week time frame. "It's a relatively newer approach," says Dr. Matlovich. "It essentially involves splitting between muscles as opposed to traditional methods that involve more cutting through the muscles. With that, we're able to obviously speed up a patient's recovery, they typically have a lot less pain, and overall they're able to return to normal activity levels a lot quicker." Dr. Matlovich says Kohlmeier was able to put weight on his new hip on the day of the surgery, and returned home the day after. He says they'll continue to use this new method moving forward.
