الفهرس 
AcknowledgmentOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Total knee replacement is one of the most common orthopaedic surgeries these days. The main reason for this surgery is osteoarthritis of the knee joint. The main goal is to relieve pain and restore the normal function of the joint.
After surgery, patients suffer from many complications, such as severe pain after the operation, increased swelling around the knee joint, an increased rate of nausea and vomiting, and weakness in the muscles of the lower extremity.
This study was conducted to test the effectiveness of using intravenous administration of dexamethasone before the operation to reduce the possible complications after the operation such as pain, swelling, nausea, and vomiting, and also to study the potential risk rate due to the use of dexamethasone on the increase in the rate of infections in the wound after the operation.
The study sample was 86 patients. The patients were randomly divided into two groups. Intravenous dexamethasone was given before the operation to patients in the first group, and Saline was given as a dummy substance that had the same physical properties in terms of shape, color, and smell for patients in the second group.
The study was conducted by following up the pain by the visual analogue scale and following up the rate of pain after the operation while resting and also during walking. Also, following up the swelling by measuring the diameter of the thigh above the patella bone with a fixed distance of one centimeter. In addition, following up the rate of nausea by a visual analog scale and recording the incidence of vomiting episodes.Also, measuring the proportion of serum C-reactive protein Lastely, following up the condition of the wound and recording the rate of occurrence of any complications such as infections. The variable factors were followed up on the patients on the first, second, third, and fourteenth days after the operation and comparing the results of both groups by analyzing the data to find out the difference between the special statistics in both groups, which reflects the effect of dexamethasone on complications after the operation.
The results showed that there was a significant improvement for the patients who received the dexamethasone dose in that they suffer from pain to a much lesser degree and lower the level of c-reactive protein. According to the risk of infection, the results were similar between both groups of patients.
It was found that this acclimatization was positively reflected on the patients who received the dexamethasone dose in terms of the ability to overcome the complications of the operation such as walking more comfortably and traveling equal distances in less time and reaching a satisfactory conviction of the patient with the results of the operation.
By comparing the results of the study on the rate of vomiting, nausea, and swelling after the operation, it was found that there is a slight improvement in the patients who received the dexamethasone dose compared to the patients who received the Saline dose.
Thus, according to the results of the study, it is recommended to give a dose of intravenous dexamethasone before performing knee joint replacement surgery for patients who suffer from knee osteoarthritis to help overcome the possible complications of surgery without fearing the complications of dexamethasone.