Post-Operative Care

Pre-Surgery Rehabilitation

‘No Surgery is good surgery’ but sometimes surgery is the only option when pain and loss of function impacts dramatically on your work, lifestyle and family. Exercising or strengthening up until surgery is important and essential to your recovery post-surgery. We naturally loose movement and strength around the affected joint or area but we need to minimise this around other joints such as the hip and ankle if you have knee surgery for example.

Merivale Physiotherapy can help to maintain your mobility and strength in the other areas of your body with specific exercise programmes tailored to your needs in order to keep you as fit as possible for your surgery. Being physically fit for surgery not only aids your recovery post-surgery but also reduces the risks of post-operative complications such as blood clots, respiratory complications and weakness in the upper limbs or poor balance when the use of crutches is required. A Physiotherapist will provide you with the initial rehabilitation while you are in hospital but these exercises need to be progressed following discharge.

Post – Operative Rehabilitation

Surgeons often have their own protocols for rehabilitation post operatively. We will work closely with your surgeon to achieve the very best result you can post- operatively. While the surgeon may repair or replace the joint, they can’t make it work and this is where you and your physiotherapist need to work together to regain your full pain free function and strength.

Once movement is allowed, it is important in the first few weeks to initially regain range of movement before considering static or dynamic strengthening. Merivale Physiotherapy will progress your exercise programme as you reach the healing milestones until your pre-determined goals have been met which could well be returning to work or sport.

Examples of surgeries we can rehabilitate:

• Shoulder reconstructions
• Spinal surgery
• Hip replacements/repairs
• Arthroscopies of the knee
• Total Knee replacements
• Anterior Cruciate ligament repairs
• Achilles tendon repairs
• Ankle surgeries