Knees
If you haven’t experienced a meniscus or ACL tear, chances are you know someone around Steamboat who has. These knee injuries often coexist with a cartilage defect or tear.
“That’s the gliding surface of the knee — the surface we rely on for smooth weight-bearing,” says SOSI’s Dr. Alexander Meininger, fellowship-trained in sports orthopaedic surgery.
SOSI surgeons use advanced tools for regenerative medicine such as platelet-rich plasma or stem-cell injections, as well as MACI surgery, which repairs cartilage defects of the knee.
Dr. Meininger, along with Drs. Adam Wilson, and Michael Sisk, are SOSI’s primary knee specialists and experts.
Dr. Meininger performs more than 500 knee surgeries annually, about 150 of which are ACL repairs. Knees became a likely focus of his practice, thanks to sports-specific orthopaedic training. His love for the outdoors also led to a passion for taking care of athletic people.
“I’ve tried to develop my practice as a complex and advanced knee specialist, and also as an educator of arthroscopic surgery,” Dr. Meininger says.
When a knee replacement is necessary, SOSI’s subspecialty care means patients are in experienced hands.
Dr. Wilson says patients who get a knee replacement can get back to whatever activities they were enjoying before. Patients start walking on their new knee on the day of surgery.
“With a knee replacement, you can get back to normal activities within about three months, as opposed to an ACL, which is about six months,” Dr. Wilson says. “We’re pretty successful at getting people back to what they were doing.”
Hips
The hip joint is one of the largest joints in the human body with tremendous demands placed upon the ball and socket joint. As such its complex nature is prone to injury, strain, tearing or breakdown of the joint cartilage. Thankfully, we have a team of non-surgical, minimally invasive, and joint replacement specialists at SOSI to help you with any manner of hip problems.
Dr. Tyson Sloan is a board-certified Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation specialist who can often help discern the source of hip pain from the low back, sacroiliac (SI) joints or the hip joint ball and socket. He can also offer in-office injection therapy.
Joint preservation surgery through hip arthroscopy is an option for those with damage to the hip joint cartilage or the labrum. Outpatient, minimally invasive arthroscopic surgery serves to repair the torn cartilage and restore the hip joint before the onset of arthritis.
If arthritis of the hip has become a persistent problem, then our fellowship trained joint replacement surgery, Dr. Howarth, is here to discuss his approach to hip replacement. His background includes training the prestigious New England Baptist fellowship program - one of the highest volume centers in the nation - and he has served as Director of Joint Replacement surgery within the United States Air Force program. His specialty includes minimally invasive anterior hip replacement as well as complex artificial hip revision surgery and prosthetic joint failures.
The Steamboat Orthopaedic & Spine Institute comprises a dedicated, local, and highly-trained staff of ten physicians and dozens of medical care and support staff, bringing world-class medicine to northwest Colorado, southern Wyoming, and the surrounding region. Alongside the team of specialists, SOSI also has a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist and a physiatrist who specializes in the evaluation of spinal and musculoskeletal disorders, non-operative spine care, including epidural injections, and EMG and global orthopaedic assessments.
