Pain-free despite knee osteoarthritis

Neue Welt, 12 March 2008

Margret Kampa (80) is an active retiree. For five years she lived with chronic pain in the knee joints. When walks were no longer possible and she had to descend stairs backwards, "the time had come to do something", as she later recalled. However, she did not want to subject herself to a new joint and the associated surgery at her age.

Dr. Karl Schuhmann, head physician of the Department of Plastic/Aesthetic Surgery and Hand Surgery at the Evangelisches Krankenhaus in Hattingen (Augusta Kliniken Bochum Hattingen), recommended Margret Kampa a gentle and still little-known method: denervation (deactivation of the nerves). This procedure does not involve operating on the joint itself; instead, the physician removes parts of the nerve pathways responsible for transmitting pain from the knee to the brain. The 45-minute procedure of knee joint denervation does not heal the knee, but ensures that the knee no longer causes pain and that the patient can move more freely again. Paralysis cannot occur, because the nerves severed during knee denervation have no connection to the motor function of the knee.

In Margret Kampa's case, the expert in knee denervation first clamped three nerve pathways, and the patient already felt better. She has since recovered well from the knee procedure. The costs of the knee joint denervation were covered by her health insurance.