Disability pension after arthroplasty

Approval date: July 2021

M. Schotanus, N Wijnands, B Boonen, J Most, S van Kuijk, C Gielen

Research proposal abstract 

There has been increasing interest in the disability pension for patients undergoing arthroplasty. The age of patients undergoing arthroplasty is decreasing over the years. Previous studies showed a RTW of the majority of patients of working age within one year postoperatively (68%-95% after THA; 71%-83% after TKA). However, long-term sickness absence was frequently present during this. Two years after surgery a 
disability pension of 72% was described after TKA in a Dutch population. However, patients included in this study were slightly younger, as the study was conducted in tertiary referral centers for advanced osteoarthritis, which mainly treat more younger patients as well as severe post-traumatic deformities. Therefore, we started a collaboration with the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) to extend our follow up 
of arthroplasty patients (partial and total knee and hip arthroplasty) to determine the incidence of receiving a disability pension and to determine which patient characteristics (e.g. age, physical condition, ASA score) may influence receiving a disability pension. As the Socio-Economic Status (SES) shows that the percentage of people receiving a disability pension (WIA) are twice as high in Limburg as in the rest of the Netherlands (1.4% vs 0.74%) [8]. It is interesting to assess whether such differences are related to the performance of arthroplasties, which are the most frequent orthopedic procedures in the country. For this study we want to combine two registers: the data registry from the Dutch arthroplasty register (LROI) combined and matched (anonymous) with the data on disability pension (and/or partial disability 
pension) from the UWV.