The new demands by patients in the modern era of total joint arthroplasty

Historians have the opportunity of viewing events, people, and their epoch through an aperture in time. With retrospective clarity, change and the forces effecting change can be appropriately categorized, emphasized, and interpreted. Sociologists see change in a forward-focused manner. When we examine our patients today, it is clear our current patients having total joint arthroplasty are different from those in years past. The sociologic influences effecting this change are many and include the revolutionary explosion of, access to, and dissemination of information; increased wealth, life activity expectation, and life expectancy; and an aging workforce. Concurrent with these forces registering change in our patient population is an erosion in respect for professionalism and vertically oriented authoritarian structure throughout society. Our patients are citizens of our modem age. Our public has come to expect miracles in medicine as the norm, yet these miracles are not without inherent risk. The trap implicit in allowing an incompletely informed populace to drive the decisions we make may be bridged by a more complete understanding of who our patients are and what their needs include. This discussion attempts to offer some insight into the forces at play. It focuses on how the changes in society, population, and technology have affected patients' knowledge and attitude toward medicine and what our response as physicians should be.