LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Baptist Health is celebrating a year of helping improve the quality of life for Arkansans with a little help from a robot.
Last year, the Mako Robotic-Arm, also called, the Stryker’s Mako System, helped conduct its first assisted knee and hip replacement surgery at Baptist Health in Little Rock.
This put the healthcare organization on the map as the first and only facility in central Arkansas to offer this highly advanced robotic technology.
Diana Podawitz, 65, was an avid golfer but after her knees made it more painful to walk she stopped playing. The long courses and constant standing made it more difficult to play and walk.
“I can’t play something if I can’t be competitive at it,” Podawitz says. “I had two knees replaced.”
In 2015, Podawitz had one of her knees replaced the conventional way.
However, in 2018, the chance to have her second knee replaced with robotic technology – would forever change her life.
“I saw the commercials for the robot and it said it would give me a shorter recovery time and it did,” she says.
About five years ago she picked up the sport Pickleball and was afraid this second surgery might stop her game.
“It was painful to bend and move,” she says. “I never expected it [the surgery] to work as well as it did but I trusted Dr. Yocum.”
Dr. John Yocum has specialized in orthopedic surgery for more than 30 years. He is an orthopedic surgery specialist in Little Rock and has used the robot-arm assist on several of his patients.
He says the positive results in his patient’s overall recovery is remarkable, which is why he foresees more medical robots on the horizon.
“So, I think that will perhaps become the standard of care in the future for orthopedic joint replacement surgery, spine surgery, that robotic direction may well be what everybody’s going to be doing at some point,” Yocum says.
The robotic-arm allows surgeons to predict where and how deep the incisions will be made for each patient before heading into the operating room.
“It’s about your quality of life,” Podawitz says.
Now, two knee replacement surgeries later, the 65-year-old athlete says her game is back on and stronger than ever, playing pickleball almost every day of the week.
“Several days a week – whenever the sun is shining,” says Podawitz. “I prefer to play an outdoor game.”
In February 2018, Baptist Health became the first and only facility in central Arkansas to offer this highly advanced robotic technology.
The highly advanced robotic technology uses a 3D virtual model of the patient’s unique anatomy and a robot arm, helping surgeons plan and perform joint replacement surgery.