Recovery after orthopedic surgery, week by week
Before surgery is decided: when strengthening and load management can delay an operation or make it unnecessary.
Knee arthritis causes pain, stiffness and swelling, but your X-ray doesn’t decide how you feel. Exercise and weight loss have the best evidence. What helps, what doesn’t, and when to think about knee replacement.
The shoulder impingement exercises that work get progressively harder. A 12-week program cut the need for surgery from about 6 in 10 to 2 in 10. The six exercises, how much to do, the pain rules, and what to expect week by week.
People with diabetes are about five times more likely to get frozen shoulder, and it tends to be more painful and slower to settle. What to expect, what to watch for with steroid injections, and when to get checked.
Frozen shoulder exercises only help if the intensity matches how irritable your shoulder is. Pushing a painful shoulder too hard makes it worse. How to tell which stage you’re in, five exercises, and the pain rules to follow.
Whether a dislocated shoulder pops out again depends mostly on your age. Under 22, about 7 in 10 do. Over 40, far fewer. The odds by age, what does and doesn’t change them, and the dislocation that often gets missed.
Over 40, a dislocated shoulder rarely comes out again, but about half tear the rotator cuff, and it’s often missed. The simple two-week test, why a scan matters early, and the nerve injury that hides behind the pain.
After a dislocated shoulder (without surgery), the sling is for comfort. Wearing it longer than about a week hasn’t been shown to stop it dislocating again. How long to wear it, what to do while you’re in it, and when to go back to sport.
The largest trial of frozen shoulder treatment found physio with an injection, manipulation under anesthetic and keyhole surgery all ended up about the same at one year. Surgery was worse early on. The sensible order to try them in.
Frozen shoulder usually takes one to three years to settle, and most people end up functionally fine. But it doesn’t always fully resolve on its own. The symptoms, the one test that tells it apart, who gets it, and when to get checked.
Rotator cuff tear arthropathy is arthritis that follows a large, long-standing cuff tear, often leaving a shoulder you can’t lift yourself. Why it happens, the 50-degree test that guides treatment, the deltoid retraining program, and when reverse replacement makes sense.