New technique For knee replacements

When walking started to hurt, John Waddell fought the pain. But when his bad knees started to affect his golf game, he then decided it was time for surgery.

"When your knees are gone you can't transfer weight," he said.

His Doctor told him about the OtisKnee. A new technique that promises a more natural feeling replacement. "Instead of us taking your knee and making it fit our protocol we're going to take this knee to fit you," said Dr. Daniel Cavazos.

Doctors Cavazos and Adrian Baddar were among the first in Virginia to use it. They say the key is blocks custom made for each patient. The blocks are used by surgeons as a template in the operating room.

Just as a dressmaker would measure a person then create a pattern and use it to cut clothes that fit
an MRI measures the knee and the OtisMed company creates the blocks.

"To give us our cuts for how we remove the bone so when the implant is placed on there it fits precisely as it was templated to," said Dr. Baddar.

The doctors say they're cutting less bone and soft tissue so patients should recover faster with less therapy.

For John Waddell that means no more using his golf clubs for canes. "I hope to be 40 years old again or 25 or whatever."

And he hopes to be back on the green by summer.