Patient Receives Total Wrist Replacement

Mark Eisen, a patient from Atlanta, Georgia, has become one of the first person to receive a full wrist replacement.

Hips, knees and shoulder replacements have become commonplace, but wrist replacement surgery is a recent medical technology, CBS 2 reported.

Eisen, who suffered serious pain when he attempted to do everyday tasks such as driving a car, typing at a computer, and throwing a ball, was the first patient for Dr. Scott Wolfe at the Hospital for Special Surgery.

Eisen had previously been told that the only way to try and ease his pain was to fuse his entire writs together. He rejected that and instead became the first ever recipient of the brand new medical technology.

Wolfe, along with orthopedics engineer Trey Crisco, spent 20 years developing an artificial wrist replacement. It was designed so that it could  allow for all the arrange of motions between the radius arm bone and the eight bones of the wrist, and prevent loosening despite being so flexible.

Eisen still requires physical therapy, and his functions are slowly returning to him.

“I’d like to just be able not to have pain the rest of my life and certainly for it not to get worse, and be able to do a lot of things that I’ve been prevented from doing,” said Eisen.

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smarcus@hamodia.com