Comparison of bilateral versus unilateral total knee replacement on pain levels and functional recovery
Abstract Background: Total knee replacement (TKR) is a common operative procedure to improve pain, function, and quality of life in patients with severe grade knee osteoarthritis. The current study aimed to compare bilateral versus unilateral total knee replacement (TKR) on pain intensity and recovery of function.Methods: A total of 80 patients (bilateral 50, unilateral 30) aged 63.28 (9.4) years undergone TKR participated in the current study. The participants were admitted for 5-7 days in the hospital. Participants in both the group received similar inpatient and outpatient physiotherapy sessions. Pain intensity and function capacity were assessed at baseline, day 7, and day 30 postoperatively using visual analogue scale (VAS) and lower extremity functional scale (LEFS), respectively. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. Results: Both the group showed a significant reduction of pain intensity and improvement in the functional capacity following TKR at 30 days post-operatively (p<0.001). However, there was a non-significant difference noted between bilateral versus unilateral TKR on the reduction of pain intensity and improvement in the functional capacity at 30 days postoperatively (p>0.05).Conclusion: Bilateral TKR was associated with a similar reduction of pain intensity and recovery of function compared to unilateral TKR, suggesting the use of Bilateral TKR in patients with bilateral knee osteoarthritis to reduce costs and co-morbidity related to staged bilateral TKR.