While over one million people hurt their ankles every year, it’s not as common to need ankle surgery. However, if you do need ankle surgery, you may not be able to find everything you need to know out on the web!
Questions like “how long does it take to recover?” or “do I need physical therapy after ankle surgery?” may be all over your mind. If so, read on to learn about PT after surgery and if it’s necessary for you!
What Is Physical Therapy?
Physical therapy is just like mental therapy, but instead of working your brain and flexing your brain muscles, it helps the muscles of your body.
Ankle physical therapy specifically would help the muscles, tissues, and ligaments of your ankle. Not only does it do that, but it also helps prevent blood clots, eliminates scar tissue, reduces inflammation, and strengthens the area.
When you see a physical therapist, they will design a plan made just for you. This will help to remobilize the joint and ankle area.
How Can Ankle Surgery PT Help Me?
So how does PT help with ankle surgery? Is it any different than physical therapy for the rest of your body?
The simple answer is no! Physical therapy for your ankle will be very similar to all other types of physical therapy. There are multiple aspects of physical therapy for your ankle that can help.
Flexibility Exercises
Since your ankles are key to everyday functioning, making sure they are flexible and mobile is very important. Doing the right amount of flexibility exercises will make sure you slowly gain your flexibility back without doing it too quickly and risking hurting yourself even more.
Once you start doing these, over time, your ankle will be more flexible and looser because of stretching out the tendons and ligaments around the area.
Strengthening Exercises
After surgery and time off of your ankle, your ankle muscle is not as strong. PT after surgery helps with this to rebuild the strength of your ankle and the surrounding area.
Strengthening exercises that may eventually use weight will help to strengthen the area.
Balance Exercises
After hurting your ankle and getting surgery, you may lose your balance more often.
By following what your physical therapist says and doing the exercises they give you, you will regain that balance over time.
Physical Therapy After Ankle Surgery in Papillion Nebraska
Because of the recovery that an ankle surgery poses, making sure that you invest time in physical therapy after surgery is important.
It will help you regain muscle strength and stability, as well as help you out with the flexibility of the ankle area to make sure you don’t hurt it again.
Are you in need of physical therapy after ankle surgery? If you are in the Papillion, Nebraska area, contact us today! We are ready to help you!
Tags: Ankle Surgery
