Direct anterior total hip arthroplasty yields more rapid voluntary cessation of all walking AIDS: a prospective, randomized clinical trial

54 patients undergoing primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) for primary degenerative arthritis of the hip were randomly assigned to undergo THA via a direct anterior approach or mini-posterior approach. The purpose of this study was to investigate if any differences in functional outcomes, SF-12, WOMAC, and HSS scores existed between the approaches, as well as if there was a difference in the number of postoperative days that patients require any assistive devices for ambulation. Findings revealed that patients in the DA-THA group required significantly fewer days to reach ambulation without assistive devices compared with patients in the MPA-THA group. In addition, SF-12 mental scores and WOMAC total scores at 3 weeks postoperatively favoured the MPA-THA group.