If Your Musculoskeletal System is Normal After Surgery, No, You Don't Need Physical Therapy

If, after your orthopedic surgery, you have full range of motion, full strength, full nerve extensibility, full function, and no symptoms, then, no, you don’t need more care such as physical therapy. You can return to your prior way of life.

How often is that the case? I’m not going to say it never happens, but it’s very rare.

Orthopedic surgery, by necessity, almost always affects tissues that weren’t the problem. Ergo, returning to normal after surgery involves more than just the problematic tissue healing. Other things have to heal correctly as well. (For instance, the muscles that were cut through to get to the injured bone.)

If you care about having a well-functioning musculoskeletal system (I advocate you do!), then you need a clinician who can ensure that your motion, strength, and nerve length are normal and you need to be able to achieve your full function without problems. (Full function includes everything from sitting to sleeping to running ultramarathons - it’s individual.) That particular clinician can work in any clinic/capacity as long as he/she is competent at these facets of orthopedics.

This, of course, begs the question, if surgery is rarely needed and, when needed, is rarely needed in isolation, why do we put surgery on such a pedestal? -- Laura