Dr Simon Perkins
Dr Perkins says patients are suitable candidates for joint replacement when they have arthritis that’s impacting their quality of life and when they experience regular joint pain which wakes them up at night and/or pain that impacts on their work or leisure activities.
“I work with my patients to first to establish that non-operative measures such as physiotherapy and analgesics aren’t working any more. If that’s the case, that’s when a patient would be suitable for joint replacement surgery,” says Dr Perkins.
“We start by discussing the pros and cons of the procedure and if we agree to proceed, I’ll then organise for a CT scan of their damaged hip or knee which then goes into the robot planning team and they work with us to come up with an appropriate plan for that patient’s specific joint and specific arthritis. We use the Mako for total hip replacement, total knee replacement and also partial knee replacement for positioning the patient’s implant effectively and to work to that pre-operative plan.”
Dr Perkins says robotic surgery ensures greater accuracy for the placement of the implant and generally results in a much better surgical outcome, exemplified by most patients experiencing less post-operative pain and having a quicker path to rehabilitation, reduced pain and almost full functionality.
Retired teacher David Taylor was finding the enjoyment from his sporting and social pursuits of golf, bowls and cycling was diminishing with increased pain in his right knee over the past year.
David’s wife died eight years ago and those leisure activities are a vital connection to his social and friendship groups and very important to his overall health and well-being.
“I love walking the 18 holes when I play golf at my local club and over the past year or so I was finding it was too painful to walk the course, so I was forced to use a golf cart which wasn’t as enjoyable. And not being able to walk regularly was detrimental to my general health and especially my heart health (David had double bypass surgery 15 years ago).
“I was also finding the knee pain at night becoming somewhat unbearable, so I went to see Dr Perkins to discuss the pros and cons of knee replacement surgery. We agreed that I should wait 12 months but after nine months I couldn’t stand it much longer, so I booked in for surgery on June 17.”
David Taylor
Dr Craig Hughes
Dr Craig Hughes is another of St Vincent’s Northside leading surgeons working with the Mako robotics system. As a hip and knee orthopaedic surgeon with Brisbane Orthopaedic Specialist Services, based at St Vincent’s Northside, Dr Hughes has performed over 400 robotic surgeries.
“St Vincent’s has been great in their pioneering of robotic surgery and in their investment in the robots because they’re quite an expensive piece of equipment,” says Dr Hughes.
“Part of the rationale for the investment in technology from St Vincent’s was that we’d all share the robot together and we’d all go on the journey of learning how to use it appropriately to improve our patient’s care - and all of the orthopaedic surgeons at the hospital have access to it and everyone’s proficient in its use.
“I tell patients the robot is a bit like flying a plane. In the old days of flight, you used to have a compass and a watch. Now with the robot, it’s like having GPS and all technology that an instrument panel does in a modern jet.
“The Mako robotics system really tells us accurately where we’re putting the components and what the soft tissue balance is like for that knee replacement at the end of the procedure. It makes a huge difference in the patient’s recovery.”
