What happens during knee replacement surgery?
A knee replacement is a procedure to remove your damaged knee joint and replace it with an artificial one (a prosthesis or implant) – this is made out of metal, plastic or ceramic. Following surgery your knee should be much less painful and the joint should move more smoothly. New advances in technology offer a greater range of implant types and sizes. Your Nuffield Health surgeon will choose the implant that best fits your body size and lifestyle. In some cases a CT scan or MRI scan of your knee may be used to create special guides that will help your surgeon accurately fit your prosthesis.

A knee replacement is normally performed under general anaesthetic
During the operation your whole existing knee joint is replaced with a new prosthetic knee joint
This takes between one and two hours
Your surgeon will make an incision (cut) at the front of your knee where the replacement will be inserted
Usually, you will stay in hospital for 2-4 days, but you may have to stay longer if necessary.