


Brushing off a doctor's advice that he was "too young," Alva got artificial hips four years ago. Now pain-free, he moves with the energy of a man in his 30s, amused at the notion that he wasn't old enough for such treatment.

"I am living so much better now in my 50s than I did in my 40s," Alva said.


The movement is so dramatic that the futures of major medical device companies such as Medtronic, St. Jude Medical and Boston Scientific are increasingly tied to younger groups and the new markets they represent.




"This is huge," said Dr. Robert Hauser, a cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute who has studied the safety and effectiveness of heart devices for years. "I think it's a tremendous step forward, but there are issues that need to be dealt with."

Though widely celebrated, some treatments have been shadowed by reports of devices or other medical products faltering - defective wires in defibrillators, failing artificial hips and leaky drug pumps, among them. Patients have suffered complications, severe pain and even death. Every year, 25 to 40 medical devices are recalled for high risk - meaning a patient's life could be in jeopardy.




"We're not talking about computers or cars or toasters," said Lisa McGiffert, director of the Consumers Union's Safe Patient Project, a group that campaigns for better medical practices. "We're talking about things that go inside people's bodies."




To get active again - and quickly - patients are more willing to consider joint replacement at a younger age than they were a decade ago, said Dr. Daniel Berry, chairman of orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

"We're seeing higher demand," Berry said of younger patients who want a new hip. "And they are going to use it a lot harder than somebody who is older."


"You have to find a happy medium," Berry said. "Think about it like the tires on your car. There's no point in getting new tires if you're not driving . but if you speed up, they wear out faster."