Orthopedic surgery is the surgical treatment of medical issues with bones, joints, ligaments, tendons or muscles. When you undergo orthopedic surgery, your medical team will likely advise you to consider a rehabilitation program to help you recover quickly and safely.
Programs may be inpatient (meaning that you would stay overnight in a hospital or medical center) or outpatient (involving a series of visits to a team of rehab specialists over the course of a few weeks or months). In both cases, the goal is to build a specialized program to help restore you to your former active lifestyle as quickly as possible.
Orthopedic Surgery Specialists
The professionals most qualified to help with your recovery from orthopedic surgery are called orthopedic surgery specialists. They have medical expertise in designing rehabilitation programs after orthopedic surgery. The most common surgeries they work with are:
- Joint replacements (such as knee replacements, hip replacements, etc.)
- Fracture repairs
- Cervical or lumbar injury repair
- Cervical or lumbar fusions
- Arthritis repair surgery
- Osteoporosis repair surgery
- Amputations
Orthopedic surgery specialists design rehab treatment plans to help patients return to their normal day-to-day activities. Every program is different, as each patient has unique medical needs, but a typical rehab program would include occupational therapy, physical therapy, and educating the patient about their condition and the best self-care techniques.
Inpatient rehab programs after orthopedic surgery
While inpatient and outpatient programs will be beneficial to your recovery, an inpatient program is more likely to be intensive and consistent.
Inpatient rehab programs give you all-day access to rehab equipment and facilities and more extensive access to your team of orthopedic surgery specialists. Your rehab team is also able to work together more easily, and you will benefit from this more coordinated approach. Finding an inpatient rehab facility with orthopedic surgery specialists on staff will therefore be your best bet to a swift and complete recovery from orthopedic surgery.
Benefits of working with orthopedic surgery specialists
1. You’ll recover more quickly
Of course, the most important benefit of an inpatient program that exclusively has orthopedic surgery specialists on staff is to help you get back to your normal day-to-day activities much more quickly after surgery. Substantial medical research confirms that patients who participated in intensive rehab programs recovered from orthopedic surgery more quickly than patients who did not.
2. You’ll have less pain
A study in the Journal of Orthopedic & Sports Physical Therapy reported the clinical outcomes of knee replacement patients either with or without an intensive rehabilitation program. The study found that the patients who received intensive orthopedic surgery rehab not only recovered more quickly, they also reported less pain than patients in the control group.
3. You’ll recover your range of motion more quickly
One of the most challenging aspects for patients recovering from orthopedic surgery is the loss of mobility in the affected area. This can have a major impact on your quality of life and activity levels.
Fortunately, research shows that an intensive inpatient orthopedic surgery rehab program can help you regain your pre-surgery range of motion more quickly. For instance, one study reported in Physiotherapy found that patients in intensive rehab after hip replacement surgery gained significant functional improvement when compared with the control group.
4. You’ll receive a fully customized rehab program designed by experts
Recovery from orthopedic surgery is a complex process. In an inpatient rehab program that includes orthopedic surgery specialists, you’ll know that your treatment has been planned to address your unique medical needs after a thorough evaluation by a team of experts.
5. You’ll get much-needed motivation and guidance
Healing after orthopedic surgery can be a slow and even discouraging process. If you work with a team of orthopedic surgery specialists, you’ll have people on hand to encourage you to stick with your rehab exercises, guide you through self-care, and keep you focused toward your goals.
If you’d like to find out more about how the orthopedic surgery specialists at Rehab Select can help you toward a quick and complete recovery from surgery, click here to send us a message and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.
