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Hip
Click on the body parts or the list below to find out more about your pain and how physical therapy can help.
- Total Hip Replacement / Partial Hip Replacement
About Total Hip Replacement / Partial Hip Replacement
When the hip has suffered a significant trauma such as a fracture or with long-term arthritis that is affecting your ability to move and walk, a total hip replacement surgery may be needed. In a total hip replacement surgery, the socket of the hip joint and head of the femur are replaced. With a partial hip replacement either the head of the femur is replaced or the socket of the hip. There have been many advances in the technology of the total hip replacement prosthesis and procedures allowing for less invasive surgery and faster recovery times.
Typically people have suffered for a while before having surgery, leading to changes in walking, muscle strength and function. Physical therapy before surgery in general has shown to help the speed and quality of recovery after surgery.
How physical therapy helps
Working with your physician’s protocols, we coordinate a thorough rehabilitation program to get you back to normal walking as soon as possible.
Typically, you may start physical therapy in the hospital the day after your procedure. In the hospital, basic movements and function such as getting up and down out of chairs, basic walking and strength are addressed. After discharge from the hospital it is very important to continue with outpatient physical therapy at our practice.
We complete the rehabilitation cycle, further restoring your range of motion via your physician’s protocols, restoring normal walking, balance, hip coordination and alleviating pain. We continue to reinforce safety precautions with your hip movement while you heal. The end result of physical therapy is being able to return to most normal activities pain-free. Call us today to learn more about our post-surgery rehabilitation program.
- Difficulty Walking
Difficulty walking
It takes us at least 12 months as a baby to learn the fundamentals of walking. It takes even longer to learn how to walk properly and eventually run. Walking is very complex and requires good balance, the ability to know where your joints are in space (proprioception), the ability to know how your joints are moving (kinesthesia), good range of motion and strength.
As we age, with declining activity, or after an injury, walking can become difficult. With previous injuries or pain in the knee or hip, our walking pattern can change leaving us with a limp or even worse, back pain. Changes in posture can also be responsible for changes in walking patterns.
When walking patterns change, abnormal stresses and strains with everyday activities can be transmitted to areas it shouldn’t. For example, if you have knee pain and you begin to limp, the other hip and your spine now have to take double the weight. This can lead to pain and dysfunction in those areas also. The good news is that if you have difficulty walking, you can be helped. Physical therapists are the experts uniquely trained to do so.
How physical therapy helps
One of the main specialties of physical therapy is helping people to walk normally. This takes a thorough evaluation of your range of motion, strength, walking patterns, balance and coordination. By discovering in what area you have difficulties we can paint a picture of why your walking is not as it should be.
We then coordinate a treatment plan that will address your range of motion, pain, coordination, balance and strength. The end result is the ability to walk without the need of an assistive device such as a cane or walker, safely and smoothly. Call us today to discover how we can help you walk better!
- Post-surgery Rehab
About Post-surgery Rehab
Other types of surgeries for the hip are fracture repairs using pinning or repair from trauma. The amount of force it takes to break bone means that the soft tissues around the hip are most likely significantly injured also. After surgery, due to limited movement, range of motion is lost as well as strength, rather quickly. Since walking is a very complex action of different muscles moving in a coordinated action, it can be difficult to walk after a hip surgery.
How physical therapy helps
Physical therapy is an important part of the rehabilitative process after a hip surgery. Depending on your surgery and your physician’s protocols, we will gently progress you through a structured rehabilitation program. The goal is to restore pain-free range of motion in the hip while maintaining surgery recovery protocols. Finally, walking coordination, balance and strength are improved so you can return to normal pain-free walking. Call us today to learn more about our post-surgery rehabilitation program.