• P Salmon, G M Hall, D Peerbhoy, A Shenkin, and C Parker.
• Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK. psalmon@liv.ac.uk
• Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2001 Mar 1; 82 (3): 360-6.

ObjectiveTo provide a more detailed description from patients' perspectives than is yet available of recovery from hip and knee arthroplasty and to use this information to test 2 assumptions about recovery from these procedures: that recovery from knee arthroplasty, as assessed by patients, routinely reaches the level achieved by hip arthroplasty; and that fatigue is prolonged after major orthopedic surgery.DesignA cohort study.SettingUniversity teaching hospitals.ParticipantsConsecutive patients undergoing hip (n = 107) or knee (n = 53) arthroplasty.InterventionsUnilateral hip or knee arthroplasty.Main Outcome MeasuresStandardized self-rated measurements of pain, function, quality of life, and well-being from preoperatively to 6 months follow-up.ResultsPain and function improved significantly less after knee arthroplasty than after hip arthroplasty, but the 2 procedures led to similar improvements in life evaluation, mood, and subjective health. Fatigue was only transiently increased.ConclusionThe findings were inconsistent with both assumptions. Nevertheless, despite poorer recovery in pain and function, patients receiving knee arthroplasty felt that life had improved as much as did patients with hip arthroplasty. Detailed information about how major joint arthroplasty in routine practice affects patients' lives can be used to advise patients and clinicians and can invalidate influential, but inaccurate, assumptions.

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