If you suffer from severe knee pain, you may be considering knee replacement surgery. While there are great benefits to this surgery, many patients wonder about the recovery period and everything involved. Today we will go over the “need to knows” for knee replacement surgery recovery and key surgery benefits.
Knee Replacement Surgery Benefits
-Increase in quality of life
-freedom or likely great decrease in pain
-improved mobility and range of motion
-Make exercise and activities easier
Knee surgery clearly provides great benefits to those suffering from knee pain, but these benefits are not automatic right after surgery. Patients must follow careful instructions during their recovery time for these benefits to take effect.
Successful Knee Recovery – What You Need to Know
Post-Surgery Education
Educating our patients is a top priority and should be for any clinic. Patients must be educated on when to rest, exercise, limits of mobilization, how long to wait for specific activities and what they should expect if they don’t follow these steps. Patients who are not educated about these steps have a much higher risk of re-injuring themselves again.
Rest After Surgery is Important
This is may seem like an obvious one, but many people that go through surgery try to rush the process of recovery by not following their doctor’s instructions. This can cause serious damage to in the process, so no matter how annoying it may be to limit your activity, rest your knee, it is for a reason.
Exercising Your Knee
Recovery takes work, patients must be proactive in their recovery. This means at home and at the doctors or physical therapy clinic. No pain no gain right? Exercising your replaced knee will be uncomfortable at first, in fact, there is a good chance it will be painful, but getting through this is a normal part of recovery. Your doctors and physical therapists are professionally trained to push you, make a steady safe recovery, and this is not always pleasant, but this is to train your knee to good health.
Knee Surgery Recovery at Home
Listen to the instructions your doctors give you. Do the exercises you are given by the physical therapists and don’t skip anything. Keep an exercise schedule, we find this helps many patients stay on their home exercise regimen for their knees. It is admittedly quite hard to not skip any exercise and follow instructions perfectly. If you don’t, there is a great chance your recovery time will be lower and you will come out with less pain and more mobility, so this is to your benefit.
Alabama Orthopaedic Surgeons – Knee Replacement Surgery
At Alabama Orthopaedic Surgeons we have over 60 years of combined experience and offer total joint replacements of shoulders, hips, and knees using the most modern techniques and latest technology. Contact us for more information on knee replacement surgery recovery!