What Postoperative Outcome Measures Link Joint Stability to Patient Satisfaction?

Total knee arthroplasty is a common, effective treatment for disabling arthritis of the knee. However, not all patients receiving total knee arthroplasty achieve what is considered an optimal outcome, and not all patients report high satisfaction with their results. Because the focus of attention increasingly turns to optimizing outcomes and utilization of healthcare resources, it is worthwhile to review the array of available tools and techniques for quantifying postoperative outcomes after knee arthroplasty and identify how these might be used to guide refinement of the treatment to achieve even better and more predictable outcomes. This review summarizes current methods for assessing postoperative outcomes on a biomechanical basis, organizes them into three complementary domains, and suggests how these domains must be linked to address the titular question.