How Physical Therapy Helps After Shoulder Surgery

For the majority of patients, shoulder surgery is a one-time event that has a major bearing on their lives. Most people don’t know what to require before, during, and after the procedure, but the more you, as a healthcare professional, can help prepare them, the more successful the recovery process will be. Some of the basic factors of recovering from shoulder surgery are:

• Physical therapy
• Enough rest to allow healing
• Perfect hydration
• Shoulder compression sleeves
• Healing cold and/or heat as appropriate

It's very important and great for patients to know that they play a key role in their own healing and that being proactive will help them return to normal life more quickly. Joining with best physical therapy centre and treat your shoulder is one of the best ways to help recovery and reach a safe return to a normal daily routine.

Physical Therapy: When to Start

Now the main point is when to start the physical therapy for the shoulder? According to experts, it can begin on the day after the procedure. Physical therapy is totally depending upon a procedure and will be suggested for some months or days for a complete recovery.

Physical Therapy: Exercises for a Fast Recovery

The main purpose of the physical therapy for shoulder surgery is to restore the muscles strength and tissues surrounding the joints and help the patient’s recovery as soon as possible. Also try to improve range of the motion, decreasing pain and improving the function of the joints or muscles.  Here are the steps of recovery and some suggested exercises that are included in these steps:

Immediate Post-Surgical Step:

The shoulder should be totally rested for the first four weeks after the surgery. Exercises should be limited to those that do not require an active range of motion, extreme stretching or lifting a weight. Some examples are:

• Exercises for hand gripping
• Wrist flexion and increase
• Isometric exercises for muscles strengthening
• Shoulder pendulums for soft mobilization
• Neck active range of motion

Protection Step:

Protection is very important after surgery. So few weeks (approximately 5 to 10) later a surgery, soft muscles of the shoulder joint are properly healing, so it is not necessary to include so many exercises through physical therapy. The main purpose of this stage is to restore the range of the motion without lifting any kind of weight or can say that passive range of motion. Some exercises may include:

• Best exercises for range-of-motion
• Soft joint mobilization
• Isometric exercises for strengthening
• Shoulder flexion and abduction

Intermediate Step:

During this step (10 to 14 weeks after surgery), Muscles of shoulder start to recover range of motion and regain the strength and flexibility. Last week of this stage, many patients start to return to their normal activity but still restricted for the weightlifting. Only allow lifting light weight. Suggested exercises may include:

• Dynamic stabilization exercises
• Lateral raises
• Prone rowing and extension
• Prone horizontal abduction
• Internal and external rotation with resistance bands

Advanced Strengthening Phase:

The left recovery time is committed to returning to normal activity levels by increasing flexibility, strength and active range of motion. Physical therapy generally includes:

• Advanced conditioning exercises
• Adding more weight to the strengthening exercises listed above
• Continued range-of-motion stretching

Unluckily, sometimes physical therapy is not most exciting and easy way for the patients or other issues also there. In this case, find a few physical therapy apps that will help them stay motivated to do their exercises at home.

Extra Tips for Shoulder Surgery Recovery

Rest:

Shoulder surgery takes some time for full recovery and also very hard for patients to match our fast lifestyle for few weeks. Stress the importance of getting ample rest and good, quality sleep, especially in the many weeks immediately after the surgery. Very important to explain to patients that the body needs to conserve energy so that it can do the necessary resources to repairing damaged tissues for a faster recovery.

Hydration:

Staying hydrated also offers to faster healing. Suggest that patients keep a water bottle nearby to provide liquids and increase circulation of oxygenated blood.

Shoulder Compression Wraps:

For the faster recovery use a shoulder compression wrap that gives both therapeutic heat and cold. Therapeutic heat can be used to relax sore muscles before or after physical therapy.

These are basics tips and you can also find more tips for Shoulder Surgery betterRecovery.