With people living longer than they used to, many people's joints aren't withstanding that longer lifespan, causing them to need hip and knee replacements.

With the long recovery time associated with joint replacements, some avoid surgery altogether, but there’s a new alternative to total knee replacement that requires less recovery time.

In southwest Missouri, only two doctors at Skaggs Community Health Center in Branson even do the surgery.

The benefit for patients is a shorter recovery time and more of the original, undamaged part of the knee can remain, giving patients a more normal feeling of their knee.

For those who want to continue living more active lifestyles after knee surgery, this is a good option.

For Bob Glenn, 83 years of physical activity has finally taken its toll.

"I just wore out my knee, playing tennis, doing a lot of activity and age, it wore out," Glenn said.

Still, he rode his bike six to eight miles a day, up to the day before surgery. It's walking that's the problem for Glenn.

"It doesn't hurt whatsoever on bicycle because there's no jar when riding bicycle. It's when you walk that you get the jar that hurts the knee," Glenn said.

For a guy who likes to walk through the Grand Canyon sight seeing with his wife, that soreness is a problem.

But, with arthritis in only two, rather than three parts, of his knee, a total knee replacement wasn't his only, or best, option.

Doctors instead did a bi-compartmental knee replacement using an implant called the Journey Deuce.

"It feels more like your normal knee, they recover quicker, less blood loss, and feels like normal knee. People do better with this. They get back to activity level quicker and feel like they can do more normal activities, than they would have with total knee," Dr. Lawrence Page of Skaggs Orthopedic Associates said.

So with less surgery and less recovery time, Bob Glenn can get back to his active lifestyle sooner.

"I hope to get back on bicycle like Dr. Page said. Get on bicycle, just as soon as I could get on it, I'm going to,” Glenn said. "I see no need of slowing down if the new knee works, we're going to do it."

Page expects his patient to be riding his bike in about two weeks, but probably not the six miles a day like he's used to right away.

Now, the Journey Deuce is not a right fit for everyone. Only those patients who have arthritis in only two of the three parts of the knee can get this procedure instead of a total knee replacement.