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Joint Camp
October 3, 2007
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You won’t find any crafts or canoes at one Lee County Camp. Joint Camp was created
to help ease the process of surgery and recovery.
The nagging pain in his knees made it difficult for George Beatty to complete important
daily tasks. “I do a lot of climbing ladders and things and it was getting to the
point where it was too painful. The cartilage in my joints was just gone in both
knees,” says Beatty. A few months ago Beatty had his first knee replacement surgery.
He says, “It was one of those things that had to be done sooner or later. It
should have been done a couple of years before but I just made it work”.
Recently George was about to undergo his second joint replacement surgery. This
time around he wanted to be as prepared as possible so his doctor recommended that
the go to joint camp.
Dr. H. Kurtis Biggs is a proponent of the program offered through Lee Memorial Health
System. He says it helps educate patients as well as their families about what to
expect before, during and after their joint operations. Dr. Biggs says Joint Camp
is designed to help patients be able to go on about their lives once surgery is
over.
Beatty says the program
has done all of the above for him. “You come in and you
have preparation, recovery time. It gives you an idea of what to expect and how
to go through what had to be done.”
Dr. Biggs says the group therapy aspect of Joint Camp helps motivate patients to
heal the right way. “They bring the people who are down, up and push them along so they can all get reached to a common goal which is nice”.
Patients involved in Joint Camp also stay in touch with each other. Six months after
surgery the patients get together to talk about their recovery experiences.
For more information on Joint Camp, log onto www.leememorial.org.
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