The aim of a THA is to give you back a painless, stable and mobile joint ; my aim is to give you back "a forgotten hip".

Although the results on pain will often be rapid from the first few days, you must accept to wait a few weeks before you can start to regain your mobility and, for example, easily put on socks or stockings.

Thanks to the latest generation of prostheses and minimally invasive surgery, you can envisage resuming driving for 10 to 15 days by raising the seat or using a pillow to be more comfortable. It is much easier to resume driving with a fairly high vehicle such as a 4x4 than with a sports car !

English canes disappear between 1 to 6 weeks depending on age and muscular condition and I recommend keeping both canes until normal walking is recovered. The use of only one cane often causes the pelvis to tilt.

About ten sessions of re-education will allow your physiotherapist to get you back on the path of everyday life.

It is important to keep in mind that speed should not be confused with haste and that the ultimate goal is to keep your new hip as long as possible. Moreover, you will be regularly monitored (see THA monitoring) by your surgeon who will check your hip and your X-ray to verify the integration of the prosthesis and the absence of mechanical complications such as wear and tear or osteolysis (see prosthesis wear and tear).

Your "new hip" will be judged at 1 year post-operatively by an X-ray of the pelvis, a clinical examination and by studying the clinical scores, including the Oxford score (see score) which you completed before the operation and at 1 year. On a recent study presented by Doctor PUCH at the SOFCOT congress in November 2017 (see conference) a rate of 88% of forgotten hips was noted.

The next question is of course how long will my prosthesis last ?

It is difficult to answer this question perfectly and several years ago I gave a prognosis of 10 to 15 years before considering perhaps a partial or total change. Fifteen years later I can affirm, still thanks to the study of the results, a survival rate of 98.6% at 15 years for my prostheses.

So today a survival rate of 15 to 20 years is quite conceivable in the majority of cases. Of course many factors are taken into account such as the patient's age, weight, activity etc... This leads us to talk about sport and THA.