A knee replacement, or knee arthroplasty, is a common procedure, most often completed because of the pain and limited mobility associated with knee arthritis. Comprehensive therapy is vital to your recovery after your knee replacement and will help you to resume your pre-surgical functional activities. The negative side effects of the surgery are also reduced significantly in the long term because of effective, comprehensive occupational and physical therapy.
Knee Flexion
The single most significant and challenging component of your rehabilitation will be bending your knee into flexion. Because of the nature of the surgery, when you bend your knee beyond 15 degrees you will feel as though your leg bone is going to break. Although this is your sensation, your physical therapist (PT) will work with you to aggressively bend your knee, often causing severe pain during therapy to prevent any loss of range of motion in the long term. Plan to take your pain medication about 30 minutes prior to this part of your therapy to help manage your pain and utilize deep breathing to help you relax. Refusing to participate in this portion of your therapy will result in the need for additional surgery and potential chronic pain.
Ambulation
Because of the pain and swelling in your knee, you will find that ambulation is more difficult for you at first. Your PT will instruct you on how to use a wheeled walker to offset some of your weight onto your arms to allow you to continue to ambulate. As you ambulate more and more you will strengthen the weakened muscles in your leg. Your therapist will also use a variety of weighted leg exercises on your affected and unaffected leg to strengthen surrounding muscles.
Stair Negotiation
Once you are able to achieve some range of motion in your post-surgical knee, your PT can begin to work on stair negotiation with you. Until you can fully bend your knee, you will need to modify the method that you use for climbing and descending stairs. Generally, therapists recommend that you lead with your good leg as you climb stairs and lead with your bad leg as you go down stairs because of your limited range.
Functional Tasks
From the start of your recovery, your occupational therapist (OT) will be involved with your care to ensure that you are able to complete activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing and simple meal preparation. When performing self-care activities, you will be challenged because you are unable to bend your knee to do work like donning your socks and shoes. Your OT will teach you how to use adaptive equipment such as a reacher, a sock aid and a long-handled shoehorn so that you can complete these activities independently.
