Post Operative Therapeutic Technology

Is Orthopedic Physical Therapy Beneficial in the Road to Recovery for Post Operative Surgery Patient’s?

Orthopedic physical therapists are healthcare professionals that treat patients with many different injuries, including rehabilitation after orthopedic surgery. There are many questions that I have concerning physical therapy when applied to post preoperative procedures. What is the main purpose of physical therapy for post operative patients? The ultimate goal in physical therapy is to help the patient regain maximal function for the injured body part. Physical therapists evaluate, manage, and treat each patient differently. Physical therapy plays a vital role in recovery after undergoing surgery but how effective is it for a 42 year old patient who has had a total knee replacement compared to a 75 year old who had the same surgery? The problem that I see with physical therapy is that every person heals differently, so what steps are being made to adjust to each person? What factors play a role in this? It's incredible to learn about the advancement in the types of modalities used in physical therapy. What did therapists due before Iontophoresis or electric stimulation? How is the duration of the recovery time affected with the use of the newer technological implementations as compared to the standard procedures? How are the procedures and exercises different in a patient who has an acute injury from one that has suffered from a chronic ailment? Again, these are the basic questions I have when researching how effective physical therapy is after surgery. With the advancement in technology doctors, therapists and researchers alike have been able to grasp a better understanding of how the human body works relating to recovery time in post operative patients.  

There is so much information out there regarding how physical therapy can help or inhibit your post surgery recover time. I hypothesize that I will use my resources at both the physical therapy office and surgeon’s office to help find answers to these questions and to broaden my knowledge on this topic. I will use the internet as an addition resource to further gain insight. There are websites such as: webmd.com, mayoclinic.com and many more that may guide me along the way.