Knee Replacement Advice, Checklists, and Journal: 5 Steps for Successful Recovery Even If You Have Complications
Review by MidWest Book Review
Synopsis: Sometimes it seems that everybody is having knee replacement surgery these days. Ask anyone who’s had the surgery how miraculous its results are — no more of the excruciating pain and limited mobility of osteoarthritis. The only problem was that surgery and recovery could be incredibly painful.
Knee Replacement Advice, Checklists, and Journal—5 Steps for Successful Recovery Even If You Have Complications by journalist Alexis Dupree (who was 61 when she found herself joining the knee replacement community) explains the methods used by someone who’s had many different surgeries, including knee replacement—and uses to prepare for and recover from surgeries successfully.
The advice portion of Knee Replacement Advice, Checklists, and Journal is deliberately short and concise, focusing on what patients need to know for preparing for knee replacement surgery and managing their recovery. Not being a medical professional, Dupree does not provide information about osteoarthritis or the structure of the knee. Rather she discusses topics she herself has found helpful in making surgeries, specifically knee replacement surgery, go well.
Knee Replacement Advice, Checklists, and Journal also explains the benefits of adopting the right attitude toward surgery and provides pragmatic planning information for both the surgery and recovery. It also answers frequently asked questions about the surgery.
Included are detailed checklists for researching doctors; rehabilitation centers (if needed); physical therapy centers; insurance information; and preparation for surgery, which includes setting up one’s home, choosing the right attire for the hospital, and acquiring the necessary equipment or other accessories before the surgery.
Critique: A recovery journal allows readers to keep a day-to-day journal of their recovery, Knee Replacement Advice, Checklists, and Journal is a unique, ‘real world practical’, impressively informative, and thoroughly ‘reader friendly’ instructional reference book that is unreservedly recommended for anyone contemplating knee surgery and will prove to be an enduringly popular addition to community and academic library Health/Medicine collections.
—Midwest Book Review
Five-Star Review by Readers’ Favorite
Knee Replacement Advice, Checklists, and Journal: 5 Steps for Successful Recovery Even If You Have Complications: Practical Advice from a Patient by Alexis Dupree is a useful guide that provides practical advice from a patient’s point of view on how to prepare for and recover from knee replacement surgery, even if there are complications. The book discusses the key factors about knee replacement surgery, how to prepare for the surgery and recovery, how to adopt the right attitude, to do the right thing, and living with the new knee. There is no magical solution in this book about surviving and recovering from the surgery, but it helps one to prepare and recover.
The author handles the topic extensively and methodically and shows how the surgery has helped her to maintain a reasonable quality of life. It will encourage patients and keep them motivated before going for surgery. The book gives a lot of positive messages to patients and teaches them to be survivors and adopt the right attitude. The author’s personal advice and tips are helpful and can be tried out during the recovery phase. It is a must-have for all those who are planning to undergo knee replacement surgery, chiropractors, massage therapists, physical therapists, and everyone dealing with a knee replacement patient. The techniques to take care of the body after surgery are helpful and will help patients live happily with their new knee. The book gives awareness and hope to all patients recovering from surgery and to all those who are going to have knee replacement surgery.
—Mamta Madhavan for Readers’ Favorite
From a Physical Therapist
… a humorous but accurate depiction of the trials and triumphs of knee replacement surgery and living with your new knee.
—Pat Ercole, physical therapist
From a User
On October 20, 2016, I had a total replacement of my left knee. Four months later I received a draft of this book. Although I offered a few comments, most of what I needed to know was already included. However, I also found several suggestions that guided me through the next few months and I spent a good deal of my reading time saying, “I wish I had known that.”
If you’re a candidate for joint replacement, do it. Yes, it’s painful. Yes, it means a reorganization of your life and habits. But it’s worth it. And if you go into surgery well prepared knowing what you will face and having a plan for dealing with the inconveniences and discomforts, you’ll come out the other side as a conqueror, with many years of good joint health ahead of you.
And this book will help. Read it. Set aside any ideas you see as ridiculous—but in a place where you can access them, just in case you need them. Take a deep breath, set the date, acquire the equipment you’ll need, and begin the adventure that you will look back on as a triumph.
—V. Hartman DiSanto, author of young adult fantasy and science fiction