Doctors at Apollo Hospital, Chennai, performed a rare quadruple joint replacement surgery on 23-year-old Amit Kar. He started to develop pain in his neck, hips, knees and back at the age of 16.
It rapidly worsened, when his hips and knees became stiff, and extremely painful making him completely immobile. He was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a condition that commonly affects the spine and hips, and sometimes other joints like knees and shoulders. This condition is common in men and occurs in the age group 20-30 years.
Dr. Arun Kannan, orthopaedic surgeon, and his team decided to perform a quadruple joint replacement surgery — replacement of both hips and both knees. “This surgery was performed in two stages in two weeks. In the first stage, the right hip and right knee were replaced and next in the second stage the left hip and left knee were replaced. Both stages required awake fibreoptic intubation — a specialised anesthetic technique where the airway tube is placed while the patient is awake,” said Dr Kannan.
As he hasn’t walked in four years, specialised rehabilitation techniques were used to help him regain muscle strength.
