Horst PK, et al. - In this retrospective analysis involving 205 patients, researchers determined the impact of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) on mental health. They included patients who had primary TKA with baseline and 1-year post-operative SF-12 Mental Component Score (MCS). At 1 year after TKA, a preoperative MCS of less than 50 points predicted higher improvement in MCS. Investigators found that following TKA, greater improvement in postoperative mental health occurs among patients with lower baseline mental health vs patients with higher baseline mental health. They observed less improvement in patient-reported outcome measures in correlation with low preoperative MCS. The procedure benefits mentally and physically patients with lower baseline mental health scores before TKA.