Gait, Balance Recovery and Balance Confidence after Total Knee Replacement: Differences between Younger and Older Patients

Total knee replacement (TKR) is the gold standard treatment for improving mobility and relieving pain associated with end-stage knee osteoarthritis (OA) when other modalities have failed. Patients demonstrate significant improvements compared to pre-TKR levels, however deficiencies in function and mobility remain when compared to healthy controls. Recent national joint replacement registries have reported a substantial increase in the number of TKR procedures performed on younger patients. Over the last decade in Canada, the largest relative percent increase (≈300%) in TKRs has occurred to patients who were between 45-54 years of age. Although this younger patient group (