Physical Therapy as Important as Surgery for Recovering from a Meniscal Tear
New research, presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons 2013 Annual Meeting and published online simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine, is emphasizing the importance of physical therapy for patients with osteoarthritis who are recovering from a meniscal tear. (Read the article on MedScape.)
This study followed patients with knee osteoarthritis and a meniscal tear who received physical therapy without surgery had good functional improvement 6 months later. In an accompanying editorial, clinical epidemiologist Rachelle Buchbinder, PhD, from the Monash University School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine in Victoria, Australia, suggested that physical therapy may hold the key for those recovering from these kinds of conditions.
Mike Pishioneri, PT, DPT, CSCS, a physical therapist at Bon Secours In Motion in Virginia Beach agrees that non-operative treatment should be a first line of defense for most injuries. “Surgery can always be an option at any point in the injury process,” says Mike, who disagrees that physical therapy doesn’t rule out surgery so much as compliment it. “Even just one visit for evaluation and personalized home exercise program before surgery will benefit patients scheduled for surgery at a later date” resulting in better outcomes and speedier recovery.
As far as postoperative therapy goes, Mike echoes what we hear so often from our expert physical therapists: it’s better to get therapy and not need it then to need therapy and not get it. “Scar tissue becomes less pliable as time goes by,” he warns, “and there is a window of opportunity for gaining things like range of motion and flexibility following a surgery. Deficits that go on for several months are much harder to treat later, and so are conditions like joint contracture and prolonged muscle inhibition, than if we prevented them earlier in the process.”
If you’re undergoing a joint surgery soon, be sure to talk to your orthopaedic surgeon about your options for physical therapy and recovery. A well-established pre- and after-care plan is essential to a good recovery.