A 71-year-old woman from Zambia underwent a challenging double-knee surgery at a hospital here that allowed her to walk properly.

Lenahnahmushamo from Lusaka had undergone a knee-replacement surgery already in her country four years ago, hospital authorities said. "She had dislocated both the knees after knee replacement and this was a very difficult situation because all the ligaments around the knee were damaged," a hospital spokesperson said Saturday.

Following this problem, she could not stand and obviously could not walk at all. She had to crawl on the floor to go to toilet, the spokesperson said. The surgery was done in two stages recently by Yash Gulati, Senior Consultant, Orthopeadics, at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital.

"To salvage this situation is a very difficult option because one has have to remove all the previous implants and then re-implant a special type of device which can take care of ligaments for ensuring stability," he said. Doing this type of surgery in both the knees in an elderly obese patient is a "difficult challenge", but fortunately the surgical procedures went off very well without any problems and she can walk now, he said. She is now able to walk with the support of a walker which will also be discarded in a few weeks, the doctor said.