ORI have launched a new wearable technology study in collaboration with Professor Henrik Kehlet of the University of Copenhagen and Professor Mike Reed at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to examine activity levels of patients after total knee replacement surgery.
The study will take place at the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, an exemplar Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) site, who have been leading the way nationally with their implementation of day case knee replacement surgery.
In general, patients recover very well from knee replacement surgery. However, around 20% of patients report ongoing pain; many do not return to physical activity; and optimal rehabilitation strategies are still to be defined.
Therefore, this study will examine why some patients recover better from joint replacement surgery than others and whether it is possible to predict a patients’ post-operative activity level. This data will help clinicians to provide additional support to those patients who find it difficult to improve their activity levels following surgery, and direct our future research.
120 participants will be asked to wear activity monitors before and for 6 weeks after surgery so that researchers can identify factors which may determine changes in physical activity following surgery.
Chief Investigator Tom Wainwright said:
“We are delighted to have operated on the first patient who is part of this important study, which we hope will help us to improve recovery following knee replacement surgery. It is fantastic project and we are delighted to be partnering with two world leading experts; Prof Mike Reed and Prof Henrik Kehlet. I’d like to thank the Northumbria and ORI teams for all their hard work in setting the project up, and also our funders ZimmerBiomet. I am looking forward to providing more recruitment updates over the coming months”.
