Post-Surgical Rehabilitation

Find Relief After Surgery with Post-Surgical Rehab

When is surgery necessary?

• ACL, MCL, and/or meniscus repairs
• Rotator cuff tears
• Full or partial knee replacements
• Total hip replacements
• Heart surgery (ablations, stent placements, cardiac pacemakers, etc.)

The impact of these surgeries on your body should not be understated. Most surgeries incur at least some degree of pain, inflammation, mobility limitations, and swelling. To complicate matters, you likely were already experiencing pain and dysfunction prior to your operation!

To accommodate healing tissues and/or to avoid recurring dysfunction, it is likely that you will have to learn how to do certain things all over again, like walking and getting dressed. Our Riverside South Vitality physiotherapists can teach you how to perform tasks safely while following critical post-operative guidelines. These guidelines are often outlined by your surgeon and could include hip precautions, sternal precautions, spine precautions, non-weight bearing, etc.

Both pre- and post-surgical rehab are essential elements of successful outcomes. Any type of surgery can be considered a form of trauma and can affect the body differently. Even minor and uncomplicated surgical procedures can have a major impact on your health. Because of this, post-surgical rehab with a Riverside South Vitality physiotherapist is especially important, in order to make sure everything goes smoothly after your operation is done.

Individualized post-surgical rehab with a Vitality physiotherapist not only minimizes your pain and accelerates your rate of healing, but it can also reduce the chances of postoperative complications, including infections, bleeding, blood clots, muscle weakness, scar tissue, decreased function, and other factors that can negatively impact your long-term health.

Another critical reason for electing post-surgical physiotherapy is its ability to help you reduce or completely avoid prescription painkillers, including opioids. An opioid epidemic is currently gripping the country and impacting every socioeconomic class. According to the CDC, an estimated 115 people every day die from opioid overdose, and upwards of 29% of people prescribed opioids will end up misusing these dangerous drugs.

For this reason, the CDC advises people to choose physiotherapy over prescription painkillers whenever possible.

Get started with post-surgical rehab today:

While pain-management drugs simply mask the pain, physiotherapy helps resolve it at the source. This is done through specialized methods, techniques, and modalities, such as joint mobilizations, home exercise programs, ultrasound, electrical stimulation, and cold laser therapy.

Depending on the limitations your surgical operation brings, our Vitality physiotherapists can provide you with tips on how to safely move around while you are recovering, such as how to get in and out of a car, go up and down the stairs, or put on your clothes. We can give you adaptive tools to compensate for reduced movement, while simultaneously working to restore your body’s normal range of movement as quickly as possible.

Part of your rehabilitation process will also include education on lifestyle and nutritional techniques that will help in optimizing your long-term health. This will help you avoid re-injury, recurrent surgeries, and prolonged downtime.

If you have an upcoming surgery, contact our Riverside South physiotherapy office today to see how we can help make your recovery process as smooth as possible. At Vitality Physiotherapy and Wellness Centre, we are here to set you up for post-operative success so you can get back on your feet faster!