Repetitive motions and high-impact activities can damage an implant over time. These types of activities include running, heavy weightlifting, jumping, and more. You may need to avoid sports, such as soccer, cross-country running, racquetball, or basketball, which involve these repetitive motions.
Avoid bending forward at the hip, creating an angle of fewer than 90 degrees. Don't cross your legs at the knee. Avoid movements that place your hips lower than your knees, like squatting. Avoid sudden movements that could lead to an injury.
No Leg Crossing
For at least two months after hip replacement surgery, avoid crossing your legs. This is particularly a risk if you bring your knee across your body. Putting a pillow between your legs while sleeping can prevent inadvertent leg crossing during sleep.
Hip precautions are a common component of standard postoperative care following a THR. The precautions are prescribed for 6-12 weeks postoperatively to encourage healing and prevent hip dislocation.
In the first few weeks and months after your surgery, you need to avoid bending more than 90 degrees, crossing your legs and twisting or pivoting at the hip. This means that activities such as driving or exercising are best avoided at first.
According to American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, more than 450,000 total hip replacements are done in the U.S every year, and younger people are finding a need for them. A new type of hip replacement is allowing patients full range of motion without fear of dislocation.
Hip replacement patients are often discharged after one or two days. After rehabilitation and a recovery period of about three months, they usually can resume their lives in full, Yang says.
You need to remain under total hip precautions for about 12 weeks. During this period, don't turn your toes in or out. Avoid crossing your legs as well. Make sure you keep all your follow-up appointments and ask your surgeon to tell you when you're free to bend beyond 90 degrees or bend down to pick things up.
Managing Expectations After Hip Replacement Surgery
Since cycling is a low impact sport, Hallows told Leousis he should have no problems getting back to the sport he loves.
Physical therapists and orthopaedic surgeons have a saying they use with hip replacement patients: Up with the good, down with the bad. That means you should lead with your stronger leg that still has your original hip to walk up the stairway and your weaker leg to walk down it.
As a result of the arthritic process, space within the joint is lost, and arthritis eventually can cause bone loss, as well. These changes may cause shortening of the leg affected by arthritis. When the joint is restored with hip replacement surgery, the leg is returned to the length it was before arthritis set in.
Losing weight, strengthening muscles, and increasing flexibility may help you stave off joint replacement.
Hip replacement ranks among the more successful operations on the musculoskeletal system, but it can have serious complications. A common one is dislocation of the total hip endoprosthesis, an event that arises in about 2% of patients within 1 year of the operation.
Joint loosening, blood clots, change in leg length, dislocation, fractures and infection are common hip replacement complications. People who have received metal-on-metal hips may also experience metallosis, a form of metal poisoning that causes tissue damage and other serious conditions.
Recovery takes time
You might be on your feet quickly, but recovery takes time and it's different for everyone. Some people might be doing well after a few weeks, but it usually takes about three months for the initial tissue healing. During that time, you're not to bend more than 90 degrees.
“On average, hip replacement recovery can take around two to four weeks, but everyone is different,” says Thakkar. It depends on a few factors, including how active you were before your surgery, your age, nutrition, preexisting conditions, and other health and lifestyle factors.
Getting up & down to the floor: Put your operated leg behind you. Follow the pictures below. After 6 weeks it is okay to take a bath as long as your incision is fully healed and you can get up/down from the floor (as shown above). Placing a non-slip mat on the bottom of the tub will reduce the risk of slipping.
Most people who have hip replacements notice an improvement in their overall quality of life and mobility. Freedom from pain is often the main benefit of surgery. You should expect to have some pain from the surgery to begin with, but you'll be given medication to help with this.
Walking is the best exercise for a healthy recovery, because walking will help you recover hip movement. Initially, the use of a walker or crutches will help to prevent blood clots and strengthen your muscles which will improve hip movement.
Squat exercises can be done after a hip replacement but not without the permission from your doctor. Squats should not be attempted until a few months after your operation.
Kneeling. After a hip replacement many patients can kneel down after completing the precautionary period of three months. The safe way to do this is to perform a single-legged kneel whereby the patient kneels on the knee of the operated side only.
Many people who have undergone a total hip replacement have had a significantly altered gait pattern, or limp, for some time prior to surgery. Besides reducing pain, alleviating a limp is the priority for many during the recovery period. Improving your ability and efficiency of walking is a multifaceted process.
An artificial hip is not identical to a healthy natural hip joint. It is much more prone to dislocation, as shown in the accompanying X-ray (Fig 8a). This happens because the artificial hip is lacking in certain structures that normally hold the head of the femur securely in the acetabulum.