Boomers Fuel Boom in Orthopedics
Baby boomers are an active lot, a can-do generation that embraced exercise and fitness as an integral part of life. And they’re not about to give that up, despite injuries and the cumulative wear and tear on their joints as they advance through middle age.
(Pictured: A serious leg injury suffered on the tennis court didn’t stop Norman Kenyon, M.D., from resuming exercise. And (below )Cuqui Maya is running without pain after knee replacement surgery.)
If you’re one of the 78 million Americans between your mid-40s and mid-60s, you might be an avid runner or tennis player. Maybe your job demands a certain level of physical agility and strength. Or perhaps you enjoy swimming, doing 5K fundraising walks or exploring new places on bicycle.
Even some of the parents of baby boomers are still swinging golf clubs and tennis rackets, taking trips around the world and deep knee-bending in their gardens, well into their 70s and 80s.
“We are seeing a significant number of individuals who are trying to stay very active later in life, playing tennis, playing golf, cycling, jogging, swimming,” said John Uribe, M.D., a Board-certified orthopedic surgeon at the Center for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine at Doctors Hospital.
A range of injuries, often related to overuse, can result. “Tendons tend to break down as you get older,” Dr. Uribe said. “And if you
stress them, they can tear easier.”
Dr. Uribe and his sports medicine colleagues at Doctors Hospital, including John Zvijac, M.D., Keith Hechtman, M.D., and Thomas San Giovanni, M.D., are internationally known for their work with elite athletes — professional, collegiate and Olympic.But they also are treating a growing number of former competitors, weekend warriors and regular folk, all of whom don’t want injuries and arthritis to interfere with their favorite activities.
“Although we take care of multimillion-dollar professional athletes, the advances in technology and techniques that we’ve developed
for them are available to all our patients,” said Harlan Selesnick, M.D., team physician for the Miami Heat. “That includes
arthroscopic surgery and minimally invasive approaches, advances in physical therapy and rehabilitation, and high-resolution MRIs.”
Those improvements mean more options for both younger and older patients, regardless of their personal goals from treatment. “We have better ways of treating people, with better results,” said Doctors orthopedic surgeon Richard Levitt, M.D., who specializes in
partial knee replacements, known as knee resurfacing, as well as total knee replacements. “We’re doing simpler, smaller and safer
procedures with faster recoveries.”
In past years, people in their 70s and 80s were forced to live with their aches and pains, which dampened their desire and restricted their ability to be active. Today, many of those people are candidates for surgery, often on an outpatient basis, or can be treated with physical therapy or injections to lubricate and soothe their knee joints.
“We can help young patients to baby boomers to older patients who want to have as normal a life as possible,” Dr. Selesnick said. “They want to walk without pain, sleep without pain, reach over their head. Surgery on those patients will work very well even though they are not necessarily athletes.”
Consider Silvia Pons, 70. She had severe arthritis in both knees, exacerbated by a damaging fall years ago in the lobby of a bank where she worked. The stiffness was holding her back. “I was in pain. I couldn’t walk up steps. I took medicine all the time,” she said.
In the summer of 2008, she had a partial joint replacement of her right knee and, a few months later, a total replacement of her left knee. Dr. Levitt did both surgeries. “He’s a very positive person and I’m a very positive person,” Ms. Pons said. “I think that is important in the way you recoup.”
Two months after her second surgery, she celebrated Thanksgiving in New York City, walking five miles her first day there. Since then, she has taken three other trips, including a tour of Europe that required trekking up and down steps. “I’ve been to Europe many times, but I’ve never had to walk that much before,” she said. “I did beautifully.”
Dr. Uribe gets special satisfaction from helping seniors recover from injuries. “This is the time in life when the pressure is off of raising kids and doing their jobs,” he said. “To stay active is a real blessing. If you have the ability surgically to keep someone going, it’s professionally very rewarding.”
One of Dr. Uribe’s star patients is retired surgeon Norman Kenyon, M.D., chairman of the Board of Doctors Hospital. Throughout his medical career, Dr. Kenyon jogged and played tennis. “That’s about all you can do when you’re doing surgery day and night,” he said.
After retiring in 2000, he kept up the tennis and jogging. About a year ago, he was playing tennis when he slipped on a wet spot, rupturing the tendon attaching his knee cap to his thigh muscle, the quadriceps. It was a devastating injury.
“I separated all four muscles above the knee,” Dr. Kenyon said, “and Dr. Uribe reconstructed me. I’m very grateful for his skill.”
Dr. Kenyon, 79, did months of grueling rehab at Doctors Hospital. “It’s slow and tedious. They push you to your max, to where you can just barely tolerate it,” he said. “Then the swelling starts to go down and the range of motion improves.”
Dr. Kenyon resumed jogging first and returned to the tennis court over the summer.
“I just want to be back to my normal self,” he said, “and tennis is a part of that.”
— Patty Shillington
For the Pros - and You
Doctors Hospital is the official sports medicine provider for the Miami Heat, Florida Panthers, Florida Marlins, Florida International University and the FedEx Orange Bowl. Surgeons at Doctors Hospital Center for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine also serve as the team physicians for the Miami Heat, Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Florida International University, Miami City Ballet and the Miami-Dade Public High School programs.
To make an appointment with a physician at the Center for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, call 786-308-2888.
New Joints Keep Athletes Spry
It wouldn’t have been possible too many years ago, but today Cuqui Maya, 53, is running again – “with my bionic knee, as I call it.” Ms. Maya, who played team sports as a girl, took up running in her 20s, advancing to marathons and triathlons (biking and swimming, long with running).
That’s a lot of high-impact stress on the joints. Despite four minor surgeries that kept her running for awhile, “my left knee broke down,” she said.
The arthritis was so severe that orthopedic surgeon Richard Levitt, M.D., told Ms. Maya she needed a total knee joint replacement. Until recently, that was an operation usually reserved for older, less active people in too much pain to walk, much less run. Better designed and longer-lasting joint implants, coupled with smaller, less traumatic incisions, now offer younger patients like Ms. Maya a chance to get rid of the pain, but not the activity they love.
For Ms. Maya, not running was not an option. “Running is like brushing your teeth in the morning, like eating,” she said.
“It’s just a part of my life.”
She is not alone. For many active people in middle age, decades of high-impact sports and exercise have led to an earlier joint deterioration than preceding, lessactive generations experienced. As a result, joint replacement surgeries are expected to double in the next decade, from the current rate of about 700,000 a year, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Within a few years, more than half the people who need hip and knee replacements will be under age 65, the academy estimates.
Ms. Maya now focuses on half marathons (13.1 miles). The Miami Beach resident also swims in the ocean some days instead of running. “Dr. Levitt was always very encouraging,” she said. “He said if you want to keep running, you have to do this surgery, and I trusted him. I run now without pain.”
Steven Blaum can understand Ms. Maya’s passion. At 54, the Miami native keeps working out because it’s an important part of who he is, as well as to lessen the stiffness and pain he endures from decades of athleticism. As a high school and college athlete, he ran track, played football, pumped iron. Like Ms. Maya, he turned to triathlons as an adult.
Over the years, Mr. Blaum has had 21 orthopedic operations, including two wrist, three elbow, four shoulder and 10 knee surgeries.
Surgeon Harlan Selesnick, M.D., has performed 19 of them – and taken care of his entire family, including two athletic sons. “He’s got the best bedside manner I’ve ever seen,” Mr. Blaum said of Dr. Selesnick.
Most of Mr. Blaum’s injuries have involved tendon tears. Arthritis has set in everywhere. The surgeries alleviate his symptoms and enable him to stay active, though he avoids high-impact exercise.
Instead, he swims, bikes and does spinning classes.
“You definitely have to keep going once you have these injuries,” Mr. Blaum said. “If I did not exercise and work out the way I do, I would ache so much more. Everything would just tighten up.”
— Patty Shillington