Abstract
Hip dislocations remain an intractable problem in patients with soft tissue impairment, particularly in those with muscle weakness around the hip, such as those who have undergone revision total hip arthroplasty (THA).
At the authors’ hospital, postoperative dislocations were observed in 10 of 154 hips between January 1985 and June 1988. Five hips required re-replacement.
Conventional measures to prevent or treat post-THA dislocations have been anti-dislocation pants for soft fixation and a cast or abduction-forcing braces for firm fixation. However, the anti-dislocation pants for soft fixation were not as effective as indicated by the above 10 postoperative dislocations. The firm fixation techniques are considered to cause a reduction in muscle strength, causing psychological stress and poor activity of daily living (ADL).
The authors devised a soft brace for easy application and prepared its test model to prevent muscle weakening, allow stability of the hip during rotation and avoid restrictions in ADL. This brace was applied to a patient who had 3 dislocations in a short period after being discharged who sustained a postoperative dislocation and achieved good results.