Here are two reasons why many people who've had any type of major knee surgery will often choose to have physiotherapy throughout their post-operative recovery period.
The physiotherapist can guide them through post-operative exercise routines that will help them to regain their mobility
After undergoing knee surgery, it's common for people to lose some mobility in their knee, due to the muscles surrounding it growing weak from lack of use. If a person with this issue goes to a physiotherapist, this professional could develop a rehabilitation exercise routine for them, and guide them through this routine, which could help the person to regain their mobility.
This routine may include exercises that are designed to increase the affected knee joint's mobility by gradually increasing its range of motion. To perform these exercises, the physiotherapist might hold and gently position the person's leg at different angles. The routine might also feature exercises designed to gradually strengthen the muscles that surround the knee joint, as well as the muscles in the other areas of the leg (such as the calf, hamstring and quadricep muscles). Initially, when the patient's knee is still quite immobile, this may simply involve them contracting the muscles, under the physiotherapist's guidance, before moving on to more challenging strength-training exercises. Additionally, the physiotherapist might also help them to do heel slides (where the person glides their heel across a surface), to increase the knee's flexibility.
The physiotherapist can help them to manage the pain and swelling that they're experiencing
After a person has knee surgery, they will often experience pain and swelling in their treated knee. A physiotherapist can do a number of things to help them with these issues. For example, this professional may use a technique called manual lymphatic drainage, where they massage the patient's affected leg in a way that will encourage the flow of lymph fluid. This can reduce the swelling around the patient's knee. This, in turn, can ease the discomfort caused by the pressure generated by this swelling. The physiotherapist may also utilise a method called soft tissue mobilisation, to relieve tension in the muscles around the knee, promote faster healing of the nearby tissues and provide pain relief.
Additionally, because elevating a knee that's had surgery done on it can relieve some of the post-operative swelling (as it causes excess fluid to drain away from the knee), the physiotherapist may also offer the patient guidance on how to safely do this when they're sitting and sleeping, in a way that will encourage fluid drainage whilst keeping the knee stable. For this method, the physiotherapist might recommend or provide a foam wedge that the person could place under their knee, which could serve as a stable platform on which to keep the knee raised.
In a lot of cases, when people talk about health risks, they focus on them in terms of life or death. For example, people often say if you smoke that you're more likely to have a heart attack or get lung cancer, and that is true. However, those aren't the only things you should focus on. You should also focus on how that habit impacts your life. To continue with the smoking example, it can also be embarrassing and expensive. It can make it harder to do physical activities, and it makes your clothing smell. This blog looks at health in that vein. Rather than narrowly focusing on life and death, these posts look at what you can do to make your life more enjoyable through being healthy.