Robotic Arm-Assisted Knee Surgery Video: Lester's Story

For More Information: Learn more about MAKOplasty surgery for chronic knee pain.

Transcript

Lester: [Singing and playing “Stand by Me” on piano.]

I played with some of the greatest blues’ players in the world: Muddy Waters, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Howlin’ Wolf. No one ever told me that playing drums would eventually wear things out. I played hard.

A lot of guys play flat-footed like that, like that. I play way up on the pedals like that so my feet were like that, man, banging those pedals like… So now we know what wears these out, don’t we?

This is the gold and platinum for the work I did with the Doobie Brothers. You just try and learn to live with it, but, man.

Regina, Lester's Wife: He always had some knee soreness and issues. You’d just hear him wince when he goes up and down the stairs kind of like eesch, shoo, ooh, or some little swift turns he’ll just really just ack, yeah.

X-Ray Technician: C’mon over here. Move that way just a little bit. So you had a lot of pain today, huh?

Lester: Well, yeah. My knees give me enough pain to where it gets really bitter.

Regina: He came home and I watched him get out of the car and stand there for at least a minute. And I thought oh, gosh!

Dr. Jankiewicz, Orthopedic Surgeon: The problem with pain, it’s a slow grind and it just beats you down really slow.

Physician Assistant: Are you getting any clicking, catching, buckling, things like that?

Lester: Oh, yeah, yeah if you, oh, yeah.

Physician Assistant: Has your walking distance decreased?

Lester: Yeah, sometimes going from the house to the car is an issue.

Physician Assistant: Any discomfort that way?

Lester: Yeah.

Physician Assistant: OK, and now I’m going to have to push here but…

Lester: Ow!

Physician Assistant: Sorry.

Lester: That’s OK.  

Physician Assistant: I’m sorry. I know.

Lester: That’s all right, that’s, ah!

Physician Assistant: I’m sorry.

Lester: That’s OK. I’m used to it hurting.

Physician Assistant: You’ve lost all the cartilage. So that’s all bone on bone now. Basically what we do is go in and just shave off that bad bone.  

Dr. Jankiewicz: We’re going to use MAKOplasty®. It’s a resurfacing of the knee versus a total knee replacement.

Physician Assistant: So that gives that nice smooth surface.

Dr. Jankiewicz: And the incision is gonna be about this big and right about there. OK. We’ll take good care of this guy.

Regina: Can’t wait 'til we’re on the other side, just can’t wait.

Lester: Here we are.

Dr. Jankiewicz: In San Diego, Sharp Coronado is the first hospital to utilize MAKOplasty.

Lester: Nice outfit.

Dr. Jankiewicz: Thank you. You look good, too. Let me sign your name, OK? Make sure you get the right one. I’ll talk to you later.

Regina: You’ll be just fine. I love you.

Dr. Jankiewicz: I’m going to be using robotic arm technology with 3-D modeling. You put two trackers here, two trackers here so the computer is reading the position of the knee. If I turn the leg one direction or another that robot knows where it’s at based on the trackers.

MAKO Technician: That’s really good high registration there, point 29.

Dr. Jankiewicz: The computer’s going to tell us how to balance the knee, make the knee stable and how much bone to take. I can’t go over to this part of the knee. The computer won’t let me do that. If you go outside the line it shuts itself off. All this is burred out to make a bed for this prosthesis.

MAKO Technician: OK, posterior post.

Dr. Jankiewicz: The future of orthopedics is robotics.

Regina: I can’t believe they’re going to get you up walking. That’s like unbelievable.

Dr. Jankiewicz: We’ll see what kind of man he is. (Laugh)

Almost every knee replacement takes the anterior cruciate ligaments. And so what we do for a partial knee is we keep the ligaments. The ACL’s retained. The posterior cruciate is retained.

Physical Therapist: Feel good to be off your back?

Lester: Well, I was pretty comfortable.

Physical Therapist: [Laugh] Stand up. All right, you’re up, you want to go for a walk? Good.

People have the surgery to get moving again, to get them down on the floor playing with their grandchildren or going on fantastic vacations and hikes with their families. That’s why I’m a physical therapist, to help people return to the things that they want to do most.

You are looking great. We don’t often see people up and walking on their first day. And we’ve seen more of that with the MAKOplasty.

Dr.  Jankiewicz: How you doing, you doing all right?

Lester: Pretty good.

Dr. Jankiewicz: Feel better?

Lester: I can already tell the difference. I put my foot down, the bite wasn’t there.

Fade to black. [Drums]

Lester: I haven’t done this in a long time. I can’t imagine my knee as being any better. If somebody would let me play in their band I’d be there, man.