Most people need hip replacement surgery after a severe hip fracture or when their hip arthritis has gotten so bad that the joint has worn away and their bones are constantly rubbing against each other. Both of these would need to be fixed by making changes to the hip joint, and if you’ve been looking into possible surgeries, you’ve probably come across a variety of terms for the procedures. So, we wanted to put together information about the 3 different hip surgeries you may have heard about so that you could be as well-informed as possible.
Total Hip Replacement
The most common type of hip replacement is called a “total hip replacement,” and it involves taking out the whole hip joint. The joint is replaced with a prosthesis, a hard-wearing, medical-grade artificial ball-and-socket joint. After talking to your hip surgeon, you can choose from different combinations of metal, ceramic, and plastic parts that make up this material. The good thing about this type of surgery is that the two parts of the artificial hip are made to work together, and the damaged area is completely removed, so you won’t have any more bone problems.
Partial Hip Replacement
In a partial hip replacement, only one part of the hip joint is replaced to fix a problem with the hip. During this surgery, the femoral head, the ball part of the ball and socket hip joint, is replaced with a metal or ceramic hip implant set into the center of the thighbone to hold it in place. This type of hip replacement is usually used to fix a broken hip joint because it only fixes one part of the ball and socket joint.
Hip Resurfacing
Even though this isn’t a form of replacement, the result is similar to a partial hip replacement in that it only changes the ball part of the joint. In a hip resurfacing procedure, less bone is removed because the original bone socket is left in place. The damaged head of the femur is shaved off and reshaped so that a metal cap can be glued on. Since this keeps more of the bone, it may feel more natural and take less time to get used to. But hip resurfacing runs the risk of not fixing the problem completely or making the bone socket wear out more, which would mean that a total hip replacement would be needed in the long run. This procedure would only work for certain patients, so talk to Dr. Vikas Mehra , the best hip replacement doctor in Chandigarh to find out if this is a possible treatment.
If you have arthritis in your hip and have been thinking about surgery, contact us to set up a meeting with one of our hip surgery experts. We can give you expert advice on replacement procedures and help you through each step so you can get the hip surgery you need and feel like yourself again.