Hip
The hip is a stable spheric joint and needs to resist peak loads up to 8-fold of the body’s weight.
Congenital or acquired joint disorders can impair the function and constantly decrease the quality of life. In most cases the patients suffer from groin pain or lower back pain. Advanced cases also show an increased stiffness which limits the mobility of the hip. In hip surgery I am focused on the artificial joint replacement by arthroplasty. I frequently perform this operation by the use of an innovative, muscle-sparing, minimal-invasive technique (AMIS Hip).
Common causes for hip pain are:
- Deformities: Native or acquired deformities of the hip can lead to increased joint wear and pain (Hip Dysplasia). Chronic Impingement can occur due to a deformity of the femoral neck (Cam Impingement).
- Injuries: Lesions of the acetabular labrum can occur after an injury (Acetabular Labrum Rupture) or due to a chronic Impingement of the hip joint (Pincer Impingement).
- Joint wear (Coxarthrosis): Increased joint wear of the hip occurs after previous injuries or operations. In most cases Osteoarthritis deteriorates joint function over years without a known cause in the elderly population.
- Complication after previous surgery: After the correct implantation of an hip prosthesis pain usually decreases substantially within a few weeks. Persistent pain and limitation of the joint movement might indicate a peri-operative complication like infection, incorrect placement of the implants or implant loosening.
For me a detailed interview and an exact physical examination are the most important preconditions to find the correct diagnosis. Apart from that standard radiographs of the hip and the pelvis are essential. Only in a few cases further examinations like magnet resonance imaging (MRI) or nuclear medical examinations (scintigraphy) are necessary.
Some cases of hip disorders can be treated without surgery. Physiotherapy, shockwave therapy, the application of anti-inflammatory drugs or cortcoid injections are often effective. In cases of early joint wear (Osteoarthritis) hyaluronic acid injections into the hip have been shown to reduce pain for months to years.
Cases of chronic hip impingement or severe osteoarthritis should be treated on time by surgery to improve the quality of life of my patients. Hip arthroscopy is successfully performed at chronic hip impingement and injuries of the acetabular labrum. I frequently perform joint replacement surgery by the use of innovative, muscle-sparing, minimal-invasive surgical approaches combined with high quality implants. This promises excellent clinical long term results after arthroplasty and fully satisfied patients.