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Dr. Tsao recalls the recovery plan set out for patients who undergo a knee replacement procedure at a Banner Hospital. Dr. Tsao completed a fellowship in Arthritis and Adult reconstruction surgery before joining the Banner Medical Centers in Arizona.
Dr. Tsao:
After knee replacement surgery the discharge planners of Banner Hospitals do a wonderful job setting up home physical therapy, home health, and return appointments. From the hospital therapists and nurses, the patients will get a list of medications and be optimized on their pain medicines, on any blood thinners they may require, on their physical therapy exercises.
There is a very clear hand off to the outpatient or the home physical therapists and nurses. Once you are at home you will have therapy regularly, no less than three times a week, and you will be doing the exercises with the help of a family member at home.
You will generally have a home health nurse checking on your wound as well as any blood work that you might need, and if you’re not doing it at home you will be generally coming to an outpatient clinic to have that blood work monitored.
You will generally get a follow up phone call from the Banner Hospitals checking to make sure everything went okay at home, and then you will come to see me in the office at two weeks where I will take out your staples and get an x-ray. The biggest question I have from patients is how badly they’re going to hurt and how incapacitated you’re going to be.
The average patient is on a walker only for safety and balance. They are fully weight-bearing and can walk. Most of them can go on to a cane at two weeks and most of them come in carrying their walker and I ask them to use the walker to keep away stray dogs and little children because I don’t want anybody to knock them over.
The other thing that I do do is I do that for safety reasons. Then they’re able to control their pain usually with oral pain medicines, many of them are on just some over-the-counter Tylenol by the time they come into the office and after they get their staples off I don’t see them for six weeks because usually they’re busy off running around taking care of their lives. So the average recuperation is about two to three weeks in a total knee.
About Dr. Audrey K. Tsao, M.D.:
Audrey Tsao received her engineering degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. She attended medical school at Cornell University and completed her orthopaedic residency at Northwestern University in Chicago. She returned to Johns Hopkins University to complete a fellowship in Arthritis and Adult reconstruction surgery.
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Keywords:
Conditions: Arthritis, Osteoarthritis
Related Terms: Knee Replacement, Hip Replacement, Partial Knee Replacement, Total Knee Replacement, Partial Hip Replacement, Total Hip Replacement, Hip Reconstruction, Knee Reconstruction, Minimally Invasive Surgery, Physical Therapy
Health Care Provider: Banner Boswell, Boswell Medical Center, Banner Boswell Medical Center
Locations: Surprise, Glendale, Litchfield Park, Peoria, Phoenix, Sun City, Arizona, 85351
Expert: Dr. Audrey Tsao, Dr. Audrey K. Tsao, M.D., Audrey Tsao, M.D, Orthopedic Surgeon Audrey Tsao, Dr. Tsao
Expertise: Orthopedic Surgery, Arthritis, Osteoarthris, Partial Knee Replacement, Total Knee Replacement, Partial Hip Replacement, Total Hip Replacement, Knee Reconstruction, Hip Reconstruction, Muscle Sparing Surgery
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