Wednesday's Article of the Week: Leg Length Differences Following Hip Replacements

If you are going in for a hip replacement, try to get the most information you can about how you can avoid or minimize a short leg. I have found only a few hip replacements to have no residual short legs, and so it is standard of care to have a short leg after. But, this means, lifts for the rest of your life in shoes or added to the bottom of shoes. I have many posts in my blog on the topic of treating short leg syndrome. This wonderful article below kindly discusses the problem. With supposedly 80% of the population having a short leg, it does mean that at least 80% of these surgeries will leave a short leg and need for a lift guy/gal like me to help post operatively. This is complicated by the fact that any surgery will temporarily weaken the joint involved. When it comes to the hip joint, when that area feels week, it throws off the gait, and makes it feel either long or short. Standing AP Pelvic Xrays post hip replacement can tell you what side of the body to place the lift, and it may not be the side you feel is short.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15190563




http://youtu.be/WRD62QspZtw

Hip Replacements: The Search for the Even Leg Lengths