![]() Walking is promoted, but be careful not to over-do it as it’s very painful if you do – trust me I know! Keep up with your routine for general conditioning as this will help to stabilise the affected leg. You can start swimming using a ‘Limbo’ or similar waterproof aid around the cast. These don’t really work as putting load through the patella is just too painful, but it does give more freedom of knee movement, more function for activities and sitting is more comfortable. However, upper limb, core stability and fit ball sitting and hip strengthening is to be encouraged.Īt four weeks the cast can be reduced after x-ray to a below knee or patella loading cast. Toe touching is possible, but any weight through the leg is not possible you are stuck with two crutches to help mobilise. It is just after 8 weeks, when pain has settled a bit that is the crucial moment where you have the opportunity to speed things up.ĭuring the first four weeks after injury, patients with proximal factures are usually placed in an above knee cast to limit lower limb rotation that can dislodge the fracture site. Well, the first 8 weeks are extremely painful and a cast is unavoidable for safe healing of the fracture and to ensure the fracture does not become displaced. So how do you improve function, allow early muscle rehabilitation, restore balance and proprioception that so quickly goes whilst patients are placed in a cast? Step 4 12 months return to contact or skiing activity.Step 3 6-12 months prepare a return to sport programme. ![]() Step 2 When pain free and somewhere between 12 and 16 weeks start to encourage full weight bearing activity and a gradual progression to activity.Step 1 Immobilise all fractures (depending on the type of fracture the treatment will vary) and check x-rays for healing and alignment at 4,8 and 12 weeks for undisplaced fractures.The prescribed safe timetable for recovery for a well-aligned fracture of the tibia and fibulaįrom an orthopaedic surgical perspective this is the typical safe time frame for recovery for an average tibia and fibula fracture. If we can speed up recovery then patients can get back to normal activity and independence quicker and minimise the disruption an injury will have on their lives. The prolonged period of immobilization can affect all areas of an adult’s life. Often they’ll have young and active families and need to get back to work as soon as they can. ![]() Not least to keep up with their responsibilities. This is a group who are desperate to rehabilitate and get into fitness as early as possible. Injury tends to be caused by contact sports like skiing, snowboarding, fell racing and similar. The typical demographic that suffers from tibial fractures are sporty younger and middle aged adults. The most compelling reason is to minimise significant and costly disruption to people’s lives. Though this isn’t something I necessarily agree with, my own experience proving that it can be done safely, there’s got to be a good reason to challenge the agreed safe orthopaedic guidelines. Why would you want to speed up recovery?Ĭommon sense would dictate that speeding up recovery will increase the risk of further injury during rehab. In this article I’ll explain why I think advanced rehabilitation is important in physiotherapy and an overview of how I achieved my speedy recovery. What I discovered was that it is possible to significantly and safely speed up recovery time. I’m an experienced MSK physiotherapist who has rehabilitated patients from elite athletes to eager weekend warriors for more than 25 years and I recently had first-hand experience of recovering from a fractured tibia and fibula.Ĭontroversially, I trialled my own specific rehabilitation programme that went against standard recommendations.
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