Glossary of Terms

Inflamation of a joint. Can be crippling. Can lead to a degenerative joint disease.

A soft, yet tough tissue that coveres the ends of bone to enable smooth articulation of joints.

Is often referred to when describing how an implant is fixed into the body. Bone cement acts like a grout and fixes implants onto and into hip and knee jonts for example.

The femur or femoral bone is also known as the thigh bone, the top part forms part of your hip joint and the bottom forms part of your knee joint.

A head referes to either a persons own natural femoral head which is often known as the "ball" part of the hip joint or a prosthetic head which is placed on a total hip stem for example.

ODEP rating

Each section has an ODEP rating listed. This is an rating issued by a group of medical professionals. The number refers to the minimum number of years that the implant has been around ( 3 being a low number of years and 10 being the highest) and the letter refers to the quality of published data that supports the implant (a. being the best c. being the worst). So far, only hips have been rated by this regulatory body.

patella

This is the knee cap

This refers to the area of articulation between your patella (knee cap) and the front of your knee (which is the bottom of your femur/ thigh bone).

This referes to the implant which is inserted into the body to replace a part that is worn out or not working.

A type of hip replacement whereby the femoral head is covered in metal and the acetabulum (socket in the pelvis) is replaced with a metal cup.

This is a re-do. If a patient has already had a hip or knee replacement but need another surgery, this is known as a revision surgery.

A stem refers to either a hip stem (a type of prosthesis which is usually made of metal) or in knees, a stem can be used to help stabilise a knee implant within the thigh bone or the shin bone.

This makes up a part of a total knee replacement implant. The tibial tray is made either of metal and plastic (polyethylene) or just plastic; onto which the femoral component (metal implant) articulates.

A type of surgery that replaces a worn out knee joint. Is made up of a metal femoral component, a plastic articulation, a tibial tray and in some cases a replacement patella (knee cap).

Refers to the way in which an implant is held in place. An uncemented implant can be fixed into the bone through the shape of the metal and or addition of a synthetic bone substitue called hydroxyappetite.

Refers to a partial knee replacement on one side of the knee.