Question: Is replacing a knee similar to replacing another body joints?

Amit Pujari answered on 16 Mar 2012:

Hi daviesl

Yes and no!

Yes because our body joints are made of same biological components.
Those components include bones, ligaments, soft tissues, body fluid (called as synoivial fluid, which reduces friction between moving body parts, similar to oil reducing friction in machine).

No, because each body joint is different. Different in how much soft tissue it has surrounding the bone,
different in how it moves and what it does and how much load it can handle. For example: hip joint moves in a different way to a knee joint (you can move your shoulder in a different way to you can move your elbow, because shoulder and elbow joints are different in their structure/design). Similarly, knee joint is different than elbow joint. Spinal joint is different than ankle joint and so on………………

So when we replace, natural knee joint by artificial one, we try to make sure that:
It will be able work, move, rotate like natural knee joint. So making and replacing artificial knee joint is different than, making and replacing artificial hip joint.