Hip Surgery | Surgeons | Sports Medicine Physicians

Reduce Pain and Stiffness

and other symptoms

Ballarat Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine - Hip Surgery Specialists

Ballarat OSM are specialists in hip surgeries. These include replacement and resurfacing for a number of conditions.

Hip surgery is a common orthopaedic procedure and, as the population ages, it is expected to become even more common. This guide to common surgical options can help you have an informed discussion with your doctor about which type is best for you.

Useful Information

Hip Surgery Options & Information

Hip Replacement Surgery

Hip replacement surgery is a great operation in terms of relief of pain, stiffness and disability caused by hip arthritis. Non-operative treatment including weight loss, paracetamol, anti-inflammatory tablets, activity modification and a walking stick, is all some people may need.

Why have a hip replacement?

Hip replacement surgery is performed to relieve pain, stiffness, and disability caused by hip arthritis. The most common reason is osteoarthritis. The pain is most commonly felt in the groin, but some people get the pain in the thigh, knee, buttock, or a combination. The diagnosis is usually confirmed on an x-ray. Most patients come to us having tried non operative treatments such as tablets (anti-inflammatories, paracetamol, glucosamine), and may have tried a walking stick. A cortisone injection into the hip joint may sometimes be appropriate. Some young patients may have other operations that should be considered.

Hip replacement is a commonly performed surgical procedure, many hundreds a year here in Ballarat. The ball and socket joint is replaced with a new artificial joint, implanted into the pelvis, and down the inside of the femur. We use rapid recovery techniques such as injections placed around the hip joint during the surgery. As a result, our patients are able to mobilise on the day of surgery, and often go home the following day.

Direct Anterior Hip Replacement

An approach that’s been advocated as providing faster recovery is the Direct Anterior Approach. Some variations of it include the bikini incision. We haven’t seen any faster recovery than our regular approach, but it probably has advantages of a lower dislocation rate, better pelvic floor strength, and less restrictions after surgery.

As with our miniposterior approach most patients are walking with one crutch the day after surgery. A disadvantage of the approach is a higher risk of fractures – to minimise this risk some patients will have a cemented hip replacement.

Hip Resurfacing

Birmingham, although the ceramic-ceramic resurfacings are showing promise, and are now available in Australia. The preferred patients have good bone quality, are of normal weight and height typically over 170cm in order to fit the sizes that are proven.

The surgery is more complex that hip replacement, the surgeon needs above average results to justify resurfacing.

Advantages of Hip Resurfacing:

Hip Arthroscopy

Some conditions in the hip joint can be improved or rectified under camera control. These are typically younger patients with labral tears, “Cam” or “Pincer” lesions, or loose bodies.

The surgery is undertaken under general anaesthesia, and usually involves an overnight stay in hospital and usually requires time on crutches afterward.

Ballarat OSM is providing this video for general education purposes only. Specifics of your individual procedure may differ. If there are any particular elements of your surgery you would like clarification on, please speak with your treating surgeon.

Revision Hip Replacement Surgery

Birmingham Hip Resurfacing

Hip replacements may fail in the long term for a wide variety of reasons, based on the design of the original implant and technique of implanting it. Whilst the revision rate of modern hip replacements is approach 0.5% per year, there are still older style replacements more likely to need re-operation.

Our practice over the last decade has performed over 200 revision operations.

Single Stage Revision Joint Replacement for Infection

Infection adds a large number of difficulties to fixing a joint replacement that has gone wrong. Some patients are not suitable for single stage surgery, and are better treated with two operations six weeks or more apart.

An infected hip replacement can be like having an infected splinter. It is almost impossible to eradicate the infection without removing the foreign material.

A traditional viewpoint is that the foreign material is removed at one operation, and some weeks/months later, a second operation undertaken to re-implant a new hip replacement (a so called two stage operation).

A single stage operation does it all in one go. The theory is that a new implant and antibiotic bone cement will restore function faster, although six months of antibiotics by mouth are usually necessary as well.

Our practice offers both single and two stage operations based on the individual patient’s circumstances.

Long Stem Hip Replacement of Tumour

Sometimes bone is weakened by tumour. This can cause severe pain and even fracture of the bone. The diagnosis may be obvious on x-ray, or it can be difficult to diagnose. Different surgeons will solve this problem in different ways, often more complex than traditional hip replacement.

The stem down the femur needs to be longer to avoid unexpected failure by the bone breaking, or giving way at the tip of the stem. The pelvis side sometimes needs a reinforcing cage or screws. Both components are usually cemented.