James Agee is no stranger to knee pain.  Arthritis led him to a full knee replacement on his left knee a few years ago, and he was sure he was headed for another full replacement on his right.

“It was like bone-to-bone grinding, because there was no more cartilage,” Says Agee.  “Imagine constantly rubbing your knuckles as hard as you can back and forth together and that’s what the knee would feel like, because f the pressure of your body.’

Agee went to see Dr. Roland J. Brandt, an Orthopaedic Surgeon at DMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital. In stead of another full knee replacement, Dr. Brandt recommended the MAKOplasty partial knee resurfacing – a minimally invasive procedure for those suffering from early to mid-stage arthritis. It’s performed using a surgeon-controlled robotic arm that accurately resurfaces the diseased part of the knee, saving as much of the original knee as possible.

“With MAKOplasty, you’re just replacing the bad part of the joint with a partial knee,” says Dr. Brandt. “You’re leaving the good, normal part behind in those other two compartments. Additionally, you’re preserving the Anterior Cruciate Ligament, or ACL< and the Posterior Cruciate Ligament, or PCL. Many times, at least one, or sometimes both of those are sacrificed when you do a total knee. So the natural feeling of the joint is much more prevalent with a partial knee than it would be with a total knee.”

Dr. Brandt uses computer data from a CT scan of the knee and then feeds that data into the computer system to determine where to place the components of the partial knee replacement, balancing the soft tissues around the knee so it has good ligament support throughout the whole range of motion in the knee.

For a full knee replacement, the recovery time is at least three months. With MAKOplasty, the incision is much smaller and the patient goes home the next day. Physical therapy is started right away, and the patient is generally back to normal within a couple of weeks.

“They’re off their cane or walker and functioning relatively normally as far as their day-to-day activities.”

Having experienced both a full knee replacement and a MAKOplasty partial knee resurfacing, James Agee agrees: “The difference in the recovery from the traditional full knee replacement surgery and this MAKOPlasty was just like night and day. I was able to get up and move around with a walker in three or four days. I was without my walker and within a week I was walking up and down the stairs.”

Agee is now back to full activity in one of his passions, golf. “I’m swinging, playing, just as well as I ever have. I wouldn’t go anywhere else.”

To learn more about MAKOplasty, visit www.dmc.org/mako .

To request an appointment with Dr. Roland Brandt, visit his online profile, or call 888-DMC-2500.