Recovering at Home After Knee or Hip Replacement

More and more people are experiencing problems with their knees and hips and are requiring surgery every year. This is because the elderly population is not only growing bigger every year, but people are generally outliving their joints.

Millions of surgeries are performed to replace worn-out knees and hips each year, and experts believe such operations will only increase substantially over the next couple of decades. To ensure that the surgery is a success, it’s recommended that patients spend time recovering at home directly following the operation.

Recovering at Home Following Joint Surgery

The majority of patients who undergo some sort of knee or hip surgery tend to recover without any type of complication if they go directly home following the operation instead of spending time at a rehab facility. This should come as good news for those about to go into surgery since recovering at home is a lot less expensive than recovering in a rehab facility.

Many patients are sent to rehab facilities after undergoing replacement on both hips or knees or who have serious underlying health conditions. While some of these patients may benefit from inpatient rehabilitation, a new recovery study reveals that patients who go directly home instead can recover just as well – if not better. The study showed that patients who perform exercise recovery programs from the comfort of their own home recover just as well as those that spend ten days in a rehab facility.

The study consisted of 252 patients, 81 of whom underwent knee replacement surgery and received ten days of inpatient rehab followed by a home-based recovery program lasting eight weeks. 84 patients performed all their rehab at home, while 87 patients acted as a nonrandomized observation group that performed only home-based rehab. Six months after the operation, the study found that there was no difference in recovery between patients that got inpatient rehab and those that recovered at home.

Patients undergoing knee or hip replacement surgery can recover at home just as well as at an inpatient rehab facility. For more health-related news, visit The Benefits Store today.