My mother-in-law is on the outer edge of the boomer generation. At 65 give or take, she just had double knee replacement surgery. Even five years ago, knee surgery was considered so invasive that you would never do both knees at once. Now here she is goign to a specialist clinic, the Center for Joint Replacement in Fremont that’s basically a factory of new knees for seniors. She was in hospital for a total of only THREE DAYS. She was carrying my daughter around within a month.
I really enjoyed the experience of going to visit her, because it seemed to me to be a glimpse into the future of medicine. A very narrow clinical focus. Exclusively immigrant care-givers. A tight age range of White patients between maybe 55 and 75, with a mean of 65. And as much a therapy session as a surgical clinic.
Post surgery, all the patients were wheeled into a common room twice a day for mandatory group physical therapy. There was no coddling here. Everyone had to do their exercises, and if they complained that they were too old, too weak etc., the response was consistently; “look at others in the circle, they’re doing it. And if you want to get out of here soon, you will do it too!” It was amazing to see the power of peer pressure being used on seniors! Another part of the magic was that you see the progression of recovery around the room- it was obvious who was there on Day 1 following surgery vs Day 2 vs Day 3, no just from the amount of bandaging etc. on their needs, but on how fit and hearty they looked. I think getting your knees replaced has the potential to be profoundly depressing- you’re old and weak and you will never walk properly again. But in fact you have to push through the pain immediately in order to get full range of motion back. It reminded me of birthing classes, but for seniors.
