Computer Aided Surgery

“It is burning and tingling that is how it feels all the time and then there are other pains where it is shooting pains and you feel like someone is stabbing you,” says Diana Baez. Diana Baez is about to have computer aided knee surgery that she’s hoping will turn her life around. 51 year old Diana has severe osteoarthritis and has lost significant cartilage in her knee. She’s tried everything from pain-killers to physical therapy, nothing gave her relief. “I can’t deal with this pain anymore.” Dr. Elton Strauss, Chief of Orthopaedic Trauma at Mount Sinai, will be using global positioning system-like technology to help him operate on Diana’s knee. “In our business if you are off by a millimeter or two degrees it can affect the outcome of the patients. When I am actually looking inside somebody’s leg whether it is the hip or the knee I see the bones I see the ligaments but I don’t know how those bones actually work when the person walks on the leg, crouches down, lies down, gets out of bed does athletic events what this computer does it replicates the function of the patient and also tells me whether or not I have recreated that person’s anatomy,” explains Dr. Strauss.

Because computer aided surgery enables surgeons to actually customize artificial joints in both knee and hip replacement patients, studies have shown that it may also lead to improved joint stability, longer-lasting implants and better range of motion. “This computer this entire set up allows me to decide exactly where my blade is going to make the cut, where my saw blade is going to resect bone and where I am going to put the implant into the bone in the right place,” says Dr. Strauss.

Infrared sensors placed in the operating room act like satellites constantly monitoring the location of markers and instruments placed along a patient’s anatomy. As the surgeon moves an instrument within a patient’s joint, the infrared sensors calculate its position and instantaneously transfer the data to a computer monitor in the form of an interactive model of the anatomy, or blueprint that supplies the surgeon with the optimum angles, lines and measurements needed to align the implant.

“The great thing about this technology is patients come into the operating room and we just do it, they don’t have to go for a multiple of x-rays, they don’t have to have computerized cat scans, they don’t have to have MRI’s, this system just takes the patients leg for what it is, interprets what the person likes on today it doesn’t worry about what the patient was like last week, it is accurate for today and makes a decision where that prosthesis should go.” It has been just three weeks since Diana’s surgery and with the help of physical therapy she is exercising, walking, and getting stronger every day. “I’m so glad that now when I walk I don’t have to feel that pain,” says Diana.