ARTHRITIS: WORKING (OUT) THROUGH THE PAIN
BY:MYRA DEMBROW
If you're in line for a hip or knee replacement, it's important to stay active, both prior to and after surgery. In fact, a recent study indicates moderate exercise likely will keep you out of a post-surgery rehabilitation center.
"The benefits of exercise before surgery are very clear," says Daniel Rooks, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. "The more you can do for yourself physically before surgery, the better off you are."
Dr. Rooks' study, details of which were published in the October 2006 issue of Arthritis Care & Research, found that a one-hour regimen three times a week for as little as six weeks cut the need for follow-up care at a rehab center by almost 75 percent.
"We saw that [the patients'] level of function and pain stabilized prior to surgery," Rooks says. "[For] those who did not exercise, their function and pain got worse."