Knee Rehabilitation at the Georgia Orthopedic Institute

Physical Therapy After a Knee Replacement Is Key to Recovery

After knee replacement surgery, physical therapy plays an important role in your recovery and your return to an active lifestyle.

Once your surgery and brief stay in the recovery room are completed, you will be brought to the orthopedic floor for the remainder of your hospital stay. The day after surgery, a physical therapist will perform an initial evaluation of your strength, mobility and range of motion.

Once therapy begins, you will be asked to perform exercises to strengthen your muscles to regain motion in the knee joint itself. Goals will be established for you to work towards in order to demonstrate your progress to greater independence and mobility.

Physical Therapy Sessions

On the day after your surgery and for the remainder of your stay, you can expect to undergo physical therapy twice a day. Emphasis will be placed on how well you are able to get in and out of bed, transfer from the bed to a chair and perform activities of daily living.

You will learn to walk with the most appropriate assistive device, usually a walker. During each session of therapy you will work on increasing the distance that you can safely walk while decreasing the amount of help needed.

When not actively participating in your therapy sessions, it will be very important to spend time sitting up in a chair at your bedside. This will help your body adjust to being upright and will also help to prevent potential complications, such as pneumonia, skin breakdown due to lying in one position for too long and other problems which occur due to a lack of mobility.

Don't Forget Your Exercises

In addition to your mobility, regaining your knee's range of motion is equally important. Exercises will play an important role in strengthening the knee and regaining the ability to bend and fully straighten the knee.

Exercises are also crucial in promoting improved circulation of the legs in order to avoid potential complications such as blood clots, or "Deep Vein Thrombosis" (DVT). You can expect to perform these exercises on a daily basis for weeks after your surgery. Throughout the recovery period, your therapists may modify these exercises.

A Continuous Passive Motion (CPM) machine may be ordered by your physician to promote early movement and decrease stiffness in the knee joint in the days after your surgery.

Back at Home

Your therapist will ask specific questions about your home environment and will help you address architectural barriers you may have, such as stairs, in order to prepare you for a safe return home. A walker will be provided for you to use during your stay and the physical therapist will work closely with the case management team to address any equipment you may need when you leave the hospital.

Many patients return home and receive several visits from a home-health therapist before progressing to an Outpatient Therapy area. However, in some cases, patients may not be quite ready to return home once the doctor releases them from the hospital. In these situations, your case manager works closely with you, your physician, nurse, therapists and your family to make arrangements for the most appropriate discharge plan.

Working Together

At Southern Regional, we believe that the more our patients know about their rehabilitation, the better prepared they will be to work toward a successful recovery. Education and active patient participation both play a vital role in successful rehabilitation.

Patients and family members are encouraged to ask questions of their healthcare team. Family members and caregivers are also encouraged to participate in the rehabilitation process.