Time taken to resume driving following hip arthroscopy

BACKGROUND: Resuming driving is a common concern among patients undergoing hip arthroscopy. The present study aimed to assess whether patients who had undergone right hip arthroscopy presented with poorer driving performance than patients with normal hips and to analyze the time required to regain preoperative driving performance. METHODS: Forty-seven patients who had undergone right hip arthroscopy and consented to our test protocol were included in this study. Using an immersive driving simulator, the patients were tested for their brake reaction time (BRT), total brake time (TBT), and brake pedal depression (BPD) preoperatively and postoperatively. The first postoperative assessments were conducted when the patients could comfortably sit on the driving seat, and the follow-up assessments were conducted for 6 consecutive weeks at weekly intervals. The patients were divided into the following two groups based on the type of surgery that they underwent: the femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) surgery group and the simple hip arthroscopy (SA) group. Twenty healthy volunteers underwent driving assessments thrice at weekly intervals and constituted the control group. The braking parameters were compared between preoperative and postoperative measurements and among the FAI surgery, SA, and control groups. RESULTS: The preoperative braking parameters of the patients who underwent arthroscopy did not differ significantly from those of the controls (p = 0.373, 0.763, and 0.447 for the BRT, TBT, and BPD, respectively). All braking parameters returned to normal in 2 weeks in the FAI surgery group and in 1 week in the SA group. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that the driving performance of patients who underwent right hip arthroscopy is comparable to that of individuals with normal hips and that the braking parameters may normalize to the preoperative state at 1 week after SA and 2 weeks after FAI surgery.