3 Tips For Successfully Recovering At Home From A Total Hip Replacement
You're getting your hip replaced and are looking forward to the day when you can walk with no pain. You've also decided to do your recovery at home. To be successful at this, you need to do some preparation before you head into the hospital. Here are the three areas you need to work on before you pack your bag and head off to have your hip surgery.
1. Arrange to Have Help When You Get Home
You will need a lot of help when you first get home. The first few days will be about resting and allowing the surgical site to heal. You'll then become more active, but will still need some help so you can focus on your exercises and therapy. This can put a burden on your friends and family, so consider having visiting nurses or in-home care aids come in to help.
When you first get home, you'll need someone to help with daily activities such as fixing meals, doing laundry and other tasks around the house. You may also need help with personal hygiene tasks such as getting to the bathroom and in and out of the shower. As you become stronger, you'll take on more of these tasks yourself. Having a nursing assistant or home health aid to help with these tasks initially will start your recovery in the right direction.
2. Make Your Home More Conducive to Recovering
Your home may not be set up to be the best recovery area. Do some rearranging of your home before going in for surgery:
- Move furniture around to create a clear path through rooms.
- Take up any throw rugs that may cause you to trip.
- Hide electrical cords that could be in the way.
- If your bedroom is upstairs, move it to the first floor for a few weeks so you can avoid the stairs.
- Create a resting space in your house with a comfortable chair, good lighting, and easy access to your TV and reading material. Have a lot of these items within arm's reach of the chair so you can rest after your exercises and therapy without needing to get up and down frequently.
3. Set Realistic Expectations
The average recovery from a hip surgery is one to six months. This depends on your current health, how disciplined you are at doing your exercises and physical therapy, and how active you wish to be when you have fully recovered. Plan for your recovery to take as long as it needs to. If you attempt to rush it, you may set your recovery back days or weeks. You could even require a second surgery by being impatient and trying to do too much too soon.
You will set your pace with your physical therapist shortly after you get home and begin doing your exercises. Stick to your pace and make incremental progress each day. No matter how good you feel on a given day, keep at your original pace. This lets your body heal, your muscles get stronger, and your stamina increase at a healthy rate.
Your successful home recovery from hip surgery starts with preparing your home, gathering your support team, and getting mentally prepared for the months of therapy. When you are this prepared, you will have a good recovery experience. For more information about in-home care, contact a professional like MultiCare Home Health.
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