Having Your Knee Replaced? Here’s What To Expect

After your knee replacement surgery, you might be surprised to see a physical therapist knocking on your hospital room door – sometimes within hours of the procedure.

It’s key to get you moving and rehabbing as soon as possible after the procedure, which typically involves at least one night in the hospital.  It is also possible you will be discharged the day of your surgery.

A therapist plays a key role in assessing your readiness to leave the hospital. They’ll help you get up and around – often with a walker – to make sure you can move safely.

From there, it’s important to get into physical therapy as soon as possible. You may be sent home with some basic exercises to work on before you first therapy appointment. Timing can vary from patient to patient, but it’s likely you’ll have your first outpatient session within a week of the surgery.

Physical Therapy’s Role

In the early going, therapy will focus on helping you learn how to move and bend your knee again. The new joint will feel strange and unnatural. But with time and assistance from your therapist, you’ll work through the stiffness and get it moving the way it’s supposed to.

Among key exercises:

• Bending: Lying on your back, you slide your knee toward your buttocks – bending your knee in the process.
• Straightening: Start by lying on your back with your ankle propped up by a pillow or towel. With the assistance of gravity, you push your knee into an extended, or straightened, position.

As therapy progresses, more attention will turn to strengthening the joint. This will build gradually, until you can walk normally without assistance. On average, it takes two to three months of physical therapy to reach that point.

Getting there requires you to do more than just attend a few physical therapy sessions each week. You’ll get your best range-of-motion improvements during the first month or so after your surgery.

To get the most out of this window, expect your therapist to give you a series of exercises to do at home, without any special equipment. Doing these exercises once every hour will significantly boost your progress.

Making Gains Despite the Pain

One of the obstacles standing between you and a return to normalcy is the pain that accompanies rehab. Unfortunately, this is an unavoidable aspect of the process, but one that won’t last forever. There’s a typical progression for rehabbing patients:

• Phase 1: During the first couple of weeks, you may find yourself wondering why you chose the surgery in the first place. At this point, the pain may be worse than it was with your knee before surgery.
• Phase 2: This initial pain will slowly fade to where you feel like you did before the surgery. Essentially, you’ll be experiencing the level of pain that drove you to the surgery in the first place.
• Phase 3: This is what you are aiming for. You’ll reach the point where you are glad you did the surgery.

One strategy for managing your pain is to take your medication before your physical therapy sessions to give your body time to absorb it. And focus on the idea that breaking through this pain is the key to a better life.

Your Recovery Timeline

You can expect an average of two to three months to recover from your surgery. But you may still experience some swelling and discomfort for up a year afterward.

Initially, you’ll likely use a walker to help you get around. As you progress, you may switch to a cane, before advancing to no assistive devices. Every person is different, so there’s no particular timeline for this progression.

One way to potentially shorten your recovery time is to build up your leg strength before the surgery. The stronger you are, the faster you can get through rehab.

It’s also important to know that your recovery won’t necessarily be linear. There are often ups and downs with a knee replacement. One day you’ll be feeling better, only to experience what feels like a setback the following day. Try not to focus on how you feel each day. Instead, take a step back and look at your overall progress.

By the time you complete therapy, you should be feeling considerably better than before the surgery. And you should be able to get back to doing the activities you enjoyed.