Friday’s Health Report: Surgery early can help prevent hip problems later in life [Video]

BATON ROUGE — Hip issues are often thought of as something older people deal with. But they can be present at birth.

Some of these conditions are caught and corrected early, but not all.

Hip dysplasia is a condition where the ball and socket of the joint don’t fit together quite right. This can lead to joint instability, bone and cartilage damage, early arthritis, and a lot of pain.

“There was always that tradition for pediatric hip surgery for young children. And there’s always the field of hip replacement surgery for elder patients. And with hip preservation, we’re kind of bridging that gap,” Mayo Clinic orthopedic surgeon Emmanouil Grigoriou said.

Grigoriou says the goal of hip preservation is “to allow patients to retain their own hip joint, their own cartilage, without any limitations or restrictions after surgery, enjoy years and years with their own native hip and potentially even eliminate …