Pain Relief and Functional Improvement after Total Knee Arthroplasty

Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is one of the most reliable and beneficial elective operative procedures because of the pain relief and improvement in physical function it provides patients with severe arthritis. Although pain relief is consistently achieved in the overwhelming majority of patients after TKA, the amount of improvement in physical function varies after TKA. Our previous publications show that patients with a low emotional health (SF12 mental composite score [MCS]) have an increased risk of less improvement in physical function after TKA. A clearer understanding of the determinants of suboptimal functional gain is critical to patient and surgical decision making.