Physical Therapy Continuing Education recently interviewed a Hip Surgery Rehab Expert about his process for rehabbing people post FAI Hip surgery.
Here are some of his answers:
Hip Surgery Rehab Expert:That being said he asked the patients to stay at least four to five days following the surgery, come twice a day, really get hands on as far as whats involved with the rehab, have a thorough understanding of that rehab process. The more times that patient can hear and have the rehab performed on them the more theyre gonna remember once they leave.
We couldnt always rely on if the patient was going back somewhere where there was a therapist available or they didnt have the means to go to therapy following this, so we also tried to make the rehab process as much possible for the patient to perform on their own with just some follow-up care as needed.
So, our main hip surgeon, when he came out here he had for the most part the same population and so he adopted that philosophy. He asked that the patients stay at least four to five days, to get in twice a day while theyre out here and we go through their specific program with them.
They get treated twice a day and then once they leave here they have the information to contact us via email, phone call to continue up with either their therapist or once they leave here their therapist or they themselves can follow-up with us.
Because our hips surgeon's practice is just exploding we did bring on an athletic trainer who has allowed us to communicate more openly with these patients and the therapists once they leave here. So, we have one full staff person dedicated purely to communicating with the patients and the therapists once they leave.
Interviewer: Excellent. And then follow-up. Do people actually come back to Vail for reassessment or how does that side of things work?
Hip Surgery Rehab Expert:Yes. What well do is theyll stay here four to five days, and what we found is that a lot of patients will stay a little bit longer. Weve seen more and more people dedicating two weeks out here. Obviously its Vail and theres some expense with spending the days out here and the nights out here, so we understand that, but some patients have made the they put the effort into finding one of the best physicians in the world doing the surgery in the rehab facility they figure they might as well spend a little extra money and stay out here. So, they are staying anywhere from four days to two weeks, three weeks up to some patients staying their whole rehab process.
That being said, even if they leave after four or five days we have them come back at probably about six to eight weeks which is right around the time when theyre starting to get more into their functional activities. Kind of going from phase two into phase three of their rehab. Thats around the time that we ask them to come back, around that six to eight week mark and/or they will come back at around 12 weeks.