How Can A Home Health Aide Help You Recover From Spinal Fusion Surgery?
Spinal fusion surgeries are commonly performed to treat chronic back pain that can't be controlled with physical exercise or pain medication. During the surgery, two or more vertebrae are fused together with a bone graft, and then rods are attached to the vertebrae to hold them in place while they heal.
Recovering from spinal fusion surgery can be tough since you'll be prohibited from twisting or bending your back. You need to keep your spine as straight as possible while you recover, as too much movement can damage the bone graft before it's healed. Unfortunately, this severely limits your mobility and makes daily tasks difficult to perform.
One way you can make recovering from spinal fusion surgery easier is to hire the services of a home health aide while your bone graft is healing. To find out how a home health aide can help ease your recovery from spinal fusion, read on.
Helps You Get Out of Bed Without Injuring Your Spine
One of the most difficult tasks during the early phase of recovering from spinal fusion surgery is getting out of bed correctly. Keeping your spine straight throughout the procedure requires you to roll over on your side and move to a sitting position while keeping your shoulders and hips in line with each other. A home health aide can provide support and help stabilize you during this process so that it's easier for you to get into the correct position without bending or twisting your spine.
Performs Daily Tasks That You're Unable to Do Due to Limited Mobility
Since you can't bend over while you're recovering from spinal fusion surgery, tasks like putting on your shoes or doing the laundry are nearly impossible without help. Lifting heavy objects is also prohibited until you've recovered since this puts extra stress on your spine. In addition, it's common to feel pain while standing when you first arrive home after surgery, and this can make it difficult to stand up for very long — which can make it hard to cook food, even if you're cooking it in a microwave.
A home health aide can help you with all of these problems. They'll perform tasks like cooking and doing laundry for you, making your life much more convenient while you're recovering.
Provides Support While You Walk, Aiding Recovery
Walking short distances is a very important part of recovering from spinal fusion surgery. It exercises your muscles, preventing them from weakening excessively. It also boosts circulation around your spine, which can help with the healing process. A home health aide can provide you with support while you're walking, which reduces your risk of falling, and they can also remind you when it's time to get up and walk around for a few minutes.
Overall, hiring a home health aide makes recovering from spinal fusion surgery much easier, since they're able to help you with the tasks that you have difficulty performing on your own. Making a full recovery from spinal fusion surgery can take months, so it's important to have some help with cooking and cleaning during the process. If you've scheduled a spinal fusion surgery or have recently undergone one, it's a good idea to hire a home health aide to support you while you recover in order to make the process easier.
For more information, contact a local home health company, like Richard Health Systems.
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