The hips are vital structures in the body that help you perform many everyday activities like walking, running, climbing, and more.

They are made up of bones, muscles, and ligaments that all work together to allow for various motions. The hips support your weight and contain ball and socket joints that provide stability, balance, and mobility.

However, due to degenerative bone disease, injury, natural aging, or overuse, you may find your hips lacking in function or perhaps even causing you pain. Problems with the hips can be attributed to many conditions, such as the following:

• Arthritis and osteoarthritis
• Dislocation
• Strains
• Sprains
• Fractures
• Bursitis

These conditions can cause a variety of uncomfortable symptoms in or around the hips, that may include any of the following:

• Pain in the hips that worsens with movement
• Pain that travels to the thighs or knees
• Popping or clicking sounds
• Difficulty walking, climbing, etc
• Difficulty rising from a seated position
• Swelling
• Limited mobility
• Stiffness
• Limping

While hip pain does not always lead to surgery, your provider may deem it necessary in some more severe cases. If your pain is very severe, you have experienced a significant decrease in mobility, or other treatments have not shown success, the need for surgery is much more likely.

This is especially true for those who find their hip function lessened and their pain increased, making it difficult to walk, climb stairs, rise from a seated position, or enjoy physical activity.

While there are a multitude of reasons why someone may need hip surgery, the main goal is to restore function, alleviate pain, and improve a patient’s quality of life.

In general, hip surgery involves a process where your surgeon restores the structure of your hip in some way, depending on your specific procedure.

This can involve removing a joint’s damaged portions and replacing them with an artificial piece(s), cutting and reshaping your hip, adding supports to the bone, and other processes. Some common types of hip surgeries include the following:

• Partial hip replacement: Surgery in which damaged portions of the hip are replaced with artificial structures, often the ball of the joint rather than the entire joint.

• Total hip replacement: This is a procedure in which the entire joint is removed and replaced with an implant.

• Hip resurfacing: A procedure that involves putting a metal covering on the femoral head rather than replacing the entire hip joint, preserving more of the patient’s natural bone.

• Hip arthroscopy: A minimally invasive procedure that focuses on the diagnosis and the treatment of problems within the hip joint, such as labral tears or hip impingement.

• Hip osteotomy: A procedure that involves cutting and realigning the bones of the hip joint to improve alignment and relieve pressure on the joint.

• Hip labral repair: This surgery fixes or reattaches a torn labrum, the ring of cartilage around the hip socket.

• Hip impingement surgery (FAI surgery): This procedure aims to correct abnormal bone growths in the hip joint by removing portions of bone. This is because abnormal growths can cause friction and damage to the cartilage of the hip.

• Hip revision surgery: This is a surgery that will either replace or repair a previously implanted hip prosthesis that has worn out, failed, or caused complications. 

• Hip fracture surgery: This procedure repairs or replaces the broken parts of the hip joint, often using metal screws, plates, or rods. 

• Periacetabular osteotomy (PAO): Aims to realign the hip socket to improve hip stability and function.

• Core decompression for avascular necrosis: This procedure removes a portion of the inner bone to reduce pressure and stimulate blood flow, preventing further bone collapse and relieving pain in the affected joint. 

Although terms like “total hip replacement” may seem intimidating, many of these types of procedures are actually very common. Your surgery will require some level of physical therapy during the healing period in order to restore function, range of motion, and flexibility to your hip(s).

In the next section, we’ll discuss the levels of physical therapy you can expect for each stage of your recovery!

Start Healing with Hive

Getting back to regular mobility is essential to an effective recovery. While the recovery experience will vary slightly depending on your specific type of hip surgery, the level of physical therapy you’ll engage in during the healing period is very similar:

Immediately Post Operation

Although many may think they’ll need bedrest after surgery, hip surgeries typically don’t have that level of restriction on movement. You’ll be expected to engage in light movements to prevent stiffness and blood clots. This can include standing or walking with assistance to help encourage blood circulation.

However, walking without supportive aids too early can be harmful, so it is important to follow your surgeon’s and physical therapist’s instructions. Additionally, the type or number of walking aids may vary throughout your recovery period.

Early Recovery Phase

In the weeks following your procedure, you will utilize walking aids that can help you stay mobile without putting too much weight or pressure on your hip. Your physical therapist will help you understand what movements to avoid to prevent dislocation or injury and how to care for your surgical site.

While walking is encouraged, there are harmful gait patterns or postures that are easy to form while healing from hip surgery. Therefore, the assistance of a physical therapist is essential for avoiding these. They’ll be able to teach you how to perform daily activities safely and with a correct posture during this stage of your recovery.

Mid-to-Late Recovery

This part of your recovery period will focus on improving your surgical hip’s strength, balance, and mobility. You’ll engage in a variety of curated treatments to regain proper hip function.

Through these treatments, your physical therapist will be able to help you relearn basic activities and perform them more effectively, such as walking with proper posture or using stairs.

As your recovery progresses to the late-stage period, your physical therapist may begin preparing you for more difficult activities, such as movements for your preferred sports or other curated activities necessary for your career or quality of life.

Long-Term Recovery

Maintaining long-term health of your hip can include regular check-ins with your physical therapist for some time after your surgery in order to maintain strength and function of your new hip.

You may need to revisit your physical therapist in the future if pain or other symptoms return. In this case, your provider will be able to rehabilitate your hip and create modifications to activities if necessary.

While it is obvious that physical therapy is necessary after a surgery, many people don’t realize how beneficial it is before a surgery. Depending on how early you seek it out when symptoms arise, physical therapy can help prevent or push back the need for surgery in some cases.

However, even if this isn’t applicable for your case, physical therapy can help prepare your body for surgery if that treatment option becomes necessary.

Especially in the case of surgeries that affect your ability to walk (such as with hip surgeries), engaging in physical therapy before your operation can be incredibly useful. 

Pre-Surgery Preparation

At Hive, we believe in early intervention, which allows patients to maximize their outcomes and prevent future complications. We believe being proactive in your health is the best way to stay healthy!

Therefore, seeking out physical therapy before your surgery is a great way to help prepare your body for the healing period and improve your overall experience with recovery. 

This is because your physical therapist will be able to help strengthen the muscles around your hip beforehand, allowing for an easier healing experience overall (after surgery, the muscles in this area will be weakened).

Additionally, as you will be walking with more weight on one side during the early phases of recovery, it will be beneficial to prepare other areas of your lower body to compensate.

Physical therapists are experts in musculoskeletal health, and can help create an exercise routine to improve your overall health—which in turn, allows for a more positive healing experience.

Physical therapists can also help you prepare for other aspects of the recovery period ahead of time, such as how to use supportive walking aids and suggesting modifications to certain activities that may prove more difficult after the surgery.

In other words, preparing for surgery beforehand can help encourage a smoother and speedier hip surgery recovery, so don’t completely rule out this extremely useful step!

You have nothing to lose and many benefits to gain by preparing for your new or altered hip.

Post-Surgery Recovery

As described in the “What to Expect” section, physical therapy is integrated into each phase of hip surgery recovery. It is essential to regaining normal function of your hip, allowing for an effective range of motion, flexibility, and mobility after your surgery.

Not engaging in physical therapy after your surgery can result in stiffness, weakened muscles, and a higher probability of future complications and falls.

While surgery helps to replace damaged portions of your hip, physical therapy helps restore function and rebuild strength afterwards. It is very important to rehabilitate your muscles and restore their strength, flexibility, and movement!

This will allow you to return to your daily activities more effectively, and therefore improve your quality of life.

Our physical therapists at Hive Therapy and Wellness can do that and more, even helping you manage your pain before and after surgery. Some physical therapy treatments you can expect before surgery or during recovery include:

• Dry Needling
• Cupping
• Manual Therapy 
• Spinal Manipulation 
• Electrical Muscle Stimulation
• Tissue Scraping 
• Exercise Prescription
• Behavioral Modifications
• Therapeutic Modalities
• Neuromuscular Re-education
• Biofeedback (part of neuromuscular)
• Therapeutic Activity