Findings despite surgery success in aiding pain, physical performance
THURSDAY, June 17, 2021 (HealthDay News) — Despite the success of primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) for alleviating pain and improving physical performance during gait, patients do not change their free-living activity behavior postoperatively, according to a study published online May 27 in the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.
Jasvir S. Bahl, Ph.D., from the University of Adelaide in Australia, and colleagues assessed change in 24-hour activity profile (waking activities and sleep using a wrist-worn accelerometer) and laboratory-based gait function from preoperatively to two years after THA among 51 patients.
The researchers found that patients showed improvements in all temporospatial and kinematic parameters with time. Patients were sedentary or asleep for a mean time of 19.5 hours per day preoperatively, which remained unchanged up to two years postoperatively (19.6 hours per day). At all time points, sleep efficiency was suboptimal (<85 percent) and was worse at two years (77 percent) versus preoperatively (84 percent). Compared to preoperatively (21 percent), more than one-quarter of the sample were sedentary for >11 hours per day at one year (32 percent) and two years (41 percent). Activity was primarily accumulated through performing light activities, which was less at two years than preoperatively. For moderate or vigorous activity, there were no significant differences seen across time.
“Despite the opportunity for patients to be more physically active postoperatively, patients were more sedentary, slept worse, and performed less physical activity at two years compared with preoperative levels,” the authors write.
Several authors disclosed financial ties to the biomedical industry.
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