Helpful Items After Hip Replacement

Walk As Often As You Can After Surgery And Walk Backward

After a total hip replacement, it is important to try and walk as often as your body will let you without flaring up the pain. Walking helps improve range of motion, helps increase blood flow to the joint, builds muscle, and reduces muscle tightness. Walking also helps pump the swelling out of the muscles and out of the joint.

Start by doing short walks around the house at 2-5 minutes in length of time. Its better to walk multiple times a day instead of 1 long walk of 30 minutes. Try and walk at least 5-6x a day for 5 minutes in the time immediately after surgery. You can slowly progress each week to longer and fewer walks as you start to feel improvement.

Another helpful tip to speed up recovery is to practice periods of backward walking. Walking backward helps improve limping after surgery, stretches out the front of the hip and hip flexors, and improves glute strength and activation.

Start by walking backward at the kitchen counter so you have something you can hold on to for balance and slowly progress for longer walks in the hallway or living room.

Think About Your Nutrition To Help Speed Up Recovery

Orthopaedic Clinical Nurse Specialist, Desmond Runganga, says a healthy, balanced diet is key to recovery.

Healthy eating & drinking is important to your overall health, but after any surgery the body has to heal.

A varied diet plays a vital role in this healing process. One that contains all important nutrients, including protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals.

Desmond also advises not to attempt weight loss during your recovery.

How Much Does Hip Replacement Cost With Medicare

It depends. Hip replacement costs vary. Medicare.gov has a tool that lets you compare the average costs of outpatient procedures between hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgical centers.

On average, an ambulatory surgery center costs more out of pocket for hip replacement $2,067, compared with $1,819 for a hospital outpatient department, Medicare.gov finds. The cost includes doctor and facility fees, but more costs may apply.

Medicare also provides a checklist for talking with your healthcare provider about how to choose a facility and check coverage for your outpatient procedure, if you qualify for one.

Factors that affect your out-of-pocket costs include:

• Where the procedure is done and whether its an inpatient or outpatient procedure

• If inpatient, length of hospital stay

• The kind of implant used

• Whether you have complications

• Whether you have supplemental insurance

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How Will It Affect My Sex Life

If you were finding sex difficult before because of pain, you may find that having the operation gives your sex life a boost. Your surgeon can advise when it’s OK to have sex again.

As long as you’re careful, you should be able to have sex after 6 to 8 weeks. Avoid vigorous sex and more extreme positions.

Tips For Making Your Home Life Easier After Hip Surgery

Are you scheduled for hip surgery? It can be a good choice for people living with chronic hip pain from inflammation, arthritis, or injury.

Hip surgery includes procedures like hip resurfacing and total hip replacement, both of which have the goal of reducing pain and improving mobility. Chris Boone, MD specializes in orthopedic surgery for hip pain, and our team is here to help you understand what to expect.

When you choose hip surgery, its normal to have questions. Learning what happens during surgery can help you feel confident before heading into the operating room, but preparing yourself for recovery is just as essential.

Hip surgery is a major procedure, and full recovery can take several months. Take time in the weeks before your hip surgery to prepare yourself and your home. Making adjustments now will make your life easier once you return from the hospital.

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What Is The Process Of Getting Hip Replacement Surgery Covered By Medicare

First, you need to find a surgeon who takes Medicare. Thats known as accepting assignment. Many surgeons do take Medicare.

Once a surgeon has seen you, they will determine if a hip replacement is medically necessary. If they say it is, and you want a second opinion before agreeing to surgery, Medicare Part B covers a second opinion the same way as a first one at 80%, so you would pay 20% coinsurance after you meet the deductible.

If the two opinions are different and dont help you decide on how to proceed, Medicare will even cover a third opinion. Medicare Advantage plans may have different rules about how they cover extra opinions.

If you decide to have surgery, you may need to wait for another layer of permission, known as prior authorization, to come through before Medicare authorizes the scheduling of your procedure.

How Should I Prepare For Surgery

Its easy if you plan ahead. Save and print your Hip Replacement Surgery Preparation Checklist. Then learn more below.

Essential Must Buys

From bathing to dressing to using the bathroom, these tools make it easier to resume your daily activities. Hip replacement kits are a great way to ensure you have everything you need to help you recover. The key components all help you avoid bending the hip joint. These products will help you live your life independently and cope with long hours on the couch.

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Use Dressing Aids And Accessorize Your Walker

Youll leave the surgical center with a walker, and youll want to accessorize right away. Two invaluable accessories youll want to attach are a basket and a drink holder. These are both great for transporting snacks from the kitchen to the living room plus, the basket is a great place to keep your phone. Never carry anything in your hands when youre using your walker.

A couple of other accessories to have on hand include a sock aid to make putting your socks on easier, especially if you dont have a partner to help you, and a long-handled reacher so you can avoid bending over too much.

After Leaving The Hospital

At first, doing your usual daily activities, such as bathing, cooking, and cleaning, will be hard to do on your own. Thats why its important to have a support system in place to ensure youre able to get through your day safely.

If you dont have the necessary support system, you may need to stay at a rehabilitation facility once you leave the hospital.

Youll get supervised physical therapy every day until youre strong and steady enough to move around safely on your own.

Once youre at home, youll need to continue doing the exercises that your physical therapist recommended you do.

This will help you gain strength and flexibility in your muscles and new joint, and itll help speed up your recovery.

If needed, your healthcare team may arrange for a home health aide, physical therapist, or visiting nurse to come to your home to help you with your recovery or to check on your progress.

Once youre at home, youll have to keep your wound dry until your stitches come out.

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Make It Easy For Yourself

Make sure everything you need is easy to get to and on the floor where you will spend most of your time. Limit your stair use to once a day.

• Have a bed that is low enough so that your feet touch the floor when you sit on the edge of the bed.
• Set up your bed on the first floor if you can. You may not need a hospital bed, but your mattress should be firm.
• Have a bathroom or a portable commode on the same floor where you will spend most of your day.
• Stock up on canned or frozen food, toilet paper, shampoo, and other personal items.
• Make or buy single meals that can be frozen and reheated.
• Make sure you can reach everything you need without getting on your tiptoes or bending down low.
• Put food and other supplies in a cupboard that is between your waist and shoulder level.
• Place glasses, your teapot, and other items you use a lot on the kitchen counter.
• Make sure you can get to your phone. A portable phone can be helpful.
• Place a chair with a firm back in the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and other rooms you will use. This way, you can sit when you do your daily tasks.
• If you will be using a walker, attach a sturdy bag or a small basket. Put in it the things you need to have close by such as your phone, a notepad, a pen, and other necessary items. You can also use a fanny pack.

Other items that may help:

Hip Replacement Recovery Continues At Home

Some patients, depending on circumstances, will go to a rehab facility for a few days or weeks before returning to live at home. This may be the case for people who live alone and dont have caregiving support, or who have factors that could complicate their recovery.

For many others, its perfectly safe to return to the familiarity of home straight from the hospital after your hip replacement. Youre still in the second phase of recovery as you re-acclimate to daily life around the house.

Patients walk with assistive devices, such as a walker or cane, during this time. Dr. Courtney anticipates the majority of people will need a walker for a couple of days, then a cane for a couple of weeks. Most people are walking without assistive devices at four to six weeks, he says. With the help of a home nurse and physical therapist, Lois remembers switching from walker to cane four days after leaving the hospital.

At six weeks, people across the spectrum are walking smoothly, feeling better, says Dr. Parks.

As for milestones like driving and returning to work, timeframes vary by patient, but in general Dr. Courtney sees people going back to desk jobs in as little as two weeks and to more active jobs after six.

Phase three of recovery, as Dr. Parks explains it, is returning to more strenuous activities and exercise. These are my hikers and bikers, he says. Returning to such taxing activities can take three to four months.

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Prepare Your Home In Advance

Before your surgery, ask friends and family to help you rearrange your home so that you have easy access to everything you will need.

Reorganise your kitchen and bathroom so that important things are at waist-level and within easy reach including your daily essentials like tea and coffee, and your soap and face flannel.

When you arrive home after your surgery, for some weeks youre also going to need help with household chores like cleaning, cooking and shopping.

Make arrangements with friends and family in advance, so they can pitch in where you need help.

You can also use aids like a perching stool or chair, to help with moving around and completing tasks. This type of stool has a seat that slopes and can come with armrests. It can make daily tasks far less strenuous, such as food preparation in the kitchen.

Top 8 Helpful Products You Need After Hip Replacement Surgery

Hip Kits | Transfer Benches | Reachers | Shower Aids | Toilet Seat Risers | Dressing Aids | Grab Bars | Canes

Hip Replacement Surgeries have become common around the world. Weakened bones and joints as we age restrict movement and make it difficult to even sit. Hip replacement procedures give those individuals another shot at enjoying life pain-free. Accidents and other disorders might also result in a person needing hip replacement surgery. While the surgery takes just a few hours, the recovery could take not just days but months. The recovery from this type of surgery is not just painful but at times even frustrating. Especially for those especially independent people who are used to taking care of themselves and do not like being dependent on someone to move.

Necessity is the mother of invention and thus in todays world, there are a plethora of products available that can be helpful in giving proper home care after hip replacement surgery. These types of devices and tools help a person get through the tough time of coping with a slow and painful recovery from hip replacement surgery.

Beyond the recovery period, some of these hip replacement aids enable a person to carry out basic day-to-day house chores without the support of someone else. This makes them independent and confident, thus somewhat helping with the healing process.

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Total Hip Replacement 6 Tips For Speeding Up Recovery

A Total Hip Replacement is a procedure that has been done for decades to relieve end-stage arthritis hip pain in patients. A total hip replacement is an invasive surgery that replaces the head of the Femur and the Socket of the Acetabulum with new metal alloys to relieve pain from bone-on-bone wear and tear.

Due to the invasiveness of the surgery, recovery after a total hip replacement does take time and focused effort. There is pain from the surgery, swelling, reduced strength, and stiffness for months after surgery. However, with a few specific tips, you can speed up the recovery and get back to your daily activities easier. Years after your surgery you may even look back and say to yourself, That wasnt that bad.

Types Of Dressing Aids

• Shoelaces and Fasteners Elastic shoelaces are used by almost all those who have difficulty bending down to or even just the simple act of tying shoelaces.
• Dressing Sticks They come in various structural types and features and include sticks that help in putting on and adjusting clothes and undergarments.
• Hair Grooming Aids They include brushes, combs, elastic bands, etc, which can be used in different ways with different features to reduce discomfort or pain during use.
• Zippers and Button Aids Buttoning a shirt can be difficult during times when the arm doesnt have enough strength to perform this activity. Button aids help in relieving this situation. Zippers can also be attached to help.
• Shoe Horns One can easily just slip their leg in the shoe while a shoehorn is clipped or placed inside the shoe. It then easily slides out without any discomfort.
• Hip Kits Hip replacement recovery kits are equipped with almost all kinds of dressing aids in one. From simple reachers to bathing aids and other important aids, hip kits are specifically designed to aid people during the rehabilitation phase of hip replacement surgeries.

Mabis DMI Reach Assist Dressing Aid Kit

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Hip Replacement Recovery: Timeline Tips And Information

How quickly you recover from hip replacement surgery will depend on a variety of factors, including your general health, age and whether you develop any complications after surgery. In most cases, your care team will aim to get you up and out of bed on the same day as your surgery or the day after.

With daily physiotherapy exercises, you should be able to return to most of your usual activities after 10 to 12 weeks. However, complete recovery for a total hip replacement takes six to 12 months. Your prosthetic hip joint can last for up to 20 years.

Bathing After Total Hip Replacement

• Take sponge baths or use a tub bench.

  Take sponge baths or purchase a tub bench. You may use a walk-in shower.

• Do not bend or reach for the tub controls.
• Do not bend or squat to wash your legs and feet. Use long-handled equipment to reach them.
• Do not sit in the bottom of a regular bathtub. Use a tub seat or bench.

• Use long-handled equipment to get dressed.
• Sit down when passing clothing over your feet.
• Do not bend over, raise your legs, or cross your legs when you get dressed.

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Benefits Of Grabs Bars And Rails

• They help maintain balance and reduce the chances of slipping or falling in the bathroom.
• They can be easily attached to the walls of the bathroom at different angles and positions.
• Grab poles reach from the floor to the ceiling and their special features enhance the experience by providing comfort and safety.
• They are perfect for people with limited mobility or limited range of motion due to major surgeries.
• They are cheap, easy to install, and one of the easiest ways to ensure patient safety.

Drive Clamp-On Tub Rail

Is Physical Therapy After Hip Replacement Necessary

If you ask a bunch of doctors and arthritis patients whether formal physical therapy after hip replacement surgery is necessary, you get a bunch of answers.

The amount and duration of formal physical therapy after surgery is variable, and people have different opinions about it, says Dr. Zuckerman. But the beauty of hip replacement is that after a few sessions with a physical therapist in which youre instructed in your exercises, it basically comes down to walking. Unlike knee replacement which involves a physical therapy focus on range of motion extended formal physical therapy after hip replacement is not really necessary.

Dr. Courtney feels much the same way. Most patients dont need formal physical therapy after leaving the hospital the best physical therapy you can do after a hip replacement is just walk, he says. In a small subset of older hip replacement patients without social support who may have balance issues, physical therapy makes sense. But for most of our patients, the best thing you can do is walk.

Physical therapy may be comforting for patients though, who may be nervous about overdoing it with their new hip.

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