Modeling the Patient Variability and Hierarchy in Joint-Level Kinematic and Kinetic Function Before and After Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty Surgery

The purpose of this study was to comprehensively capture the variability of improvement in knee joint-level biomechanics during walking gait of participants immediately before to one year after TKA, measured objectively using 3D gait analysis. This included examining how the pre-TKA status of knee joint-level biomechanics influences the amount of improvement after TKA, and investigating on an individual level whether joint-level biomechanics, both pre- and post-TKA, are more similar in level of function to healthy controls or those with moderate knee OA. The majority of individuals post-TKA reach levels of knee joint function most similar to those with moderate levels of OA. This study also examined the hierarchy of knee joint-level biomechanics in TKA to best summarize the functional variables that are most targeted by current standard of care TKA, and those that remain deficient post-TKA. It was shown that current TKA management predominately alters variables of the frontal plane.