Can you kneel after having a knee replacement

In addition, be sure to inquire about other activities like climbing stairs, driving, and getting in and out of your car. With surgery and proper physical therapy, you should be able to bend your knee sufficiently to perform these daily activities. Learn tips for managing arthrits pain, medications, and daily challenges.

J Arthroplasty. Why do patients not kneel after total knee replacement? Is neuropathic pain a contributing factor? Total knee replacement. Updated June American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. After partial knee replacement, patients can knee, but they need to be taught to do so: a single-blind randomized controlled trial.

Phys Ther. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellHealth. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. We and our partners process data to: Actively scan device characteristics for identification. For this to happen, healthcare professionals need to recognize that kneeling is the most unsatisfactory patient-reported outcome after TKR and that problematic kneeling can have a considerable negative impact on health-related quality of life.

Informing patients of this prior to surgery would enable patients to set realistic expectations of their post-surgical outcome. An RCT is currently ongoing to evaluate whether providing patients with additional education prior to surgery to set realistic expectations, including regarding kneeling ability, can improve satisfaction at 12 months post-operatively.

Further research to understand more about the surgical and implant-related factors that are associated with kneeling ability could inform shared decision-making about surgical options with patients for whom kneeling is a particularly important outcome, e. More research is also needed to design and evaluate interventions to improve kneeling. This would need to address the multifactorial reasons for which patients have difficulty kneeling after TKR, and patients have identified that they would like more information before surgery about post-operative kneeling ability, a more holistic approach to account for their other co-morbidities, use of kneeling demonstrations and provision of advice that kneeling is safe and will not damage their prosthesis.

Patients have growing expectations of being able to return to a full and active lifestyle after their TKR. To meet these expectations, research is needed to evaluate how to optimize higher-function activities such as kneeling. The majority of patients experience difficulty kneeling after TKR, which can have a detrimental impact on many activities and areas of life and is a source of dissatisfaction.

NH declares receiving funding for providing educational activities as faculty on courses for Stryker and Smith and Nephew. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Published online Jul 7. Blom 1, 2, 4. Ashley W. Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Email: ku. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Keywords: kneeling, outcomes, total knee replacement.

Introduction The primary reasons that patients elect to undergo total knee replacement TKR are to gain improvements in pain and walking ability. Prevalence Kneeling is considered as one of the most important but also most difficult to do activities for patients with TKR, 7 , 15 — 19 and is the poorest patient-rated outcome after TKR.

Table 1. Open in a separate window. Impact Kneeling is important for many activities and areas of life and is considered a valued activity for most patients with TKR. Daily activities Difficulty kneeling after TKR can impact on a number of daily household and self-care activities, including cleaning, reaching items from low cupboards or picking them up from the floor, decorating, and getting out of the bath. Social participation Assessment of the success of TKR is often focused on pain relief and improvement in the ability to carry out basic activities of daily living.

Falls Falls are a common problem in older adults, with one in three community-dwelling adults aged 60 years or over falling each year. Aetiology Understanding the underlying factors contributing to the difficulty that patients experience with kneeling after TKR is key to designing interventions to improve this important outcome. Healthcare services and unmet need There has been little research to evaluate the provision of healthcare services and interventions for patients who find kneeling problematic after TKR.

Implications for clinical practice and directions for future research The first step to improving care for patients is to promote clinical awareness of this poor outcome after surgery and its importance to patients, and to empower patients to feel that this long-term problem is recognized. Conclusions Patients have growing expectations of being able to return to a full and active lifestyle after their TKR.

References 1. Unfulfilled expectations after total hip and knee arthroplasty surgery: there is a need for better preoperative patient information and education. J Arthroplasty ; 31 — Patient expectations of arthroplasty of the hip and knee. J Bone Joint Surg Br ; 94 — Preoperative expectations associated with postoperative dissatisfaction after total knee arthroplasty: a cohort study. Post-operative Oxford knee score can be used to indicate whether patient expectations have been achieved after primary total knee arthroplasty.

Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc ; 23 — Arch Phys Med Rehabil ; 99 — Patient satisfaction after primary total and unicompartmental knee arthroplasty: an age-dependent analysis. Knee ; 21 — What functional activities are important to patients with knee replacements? Clin Orthop Relat Res ; — The role of pain and function in determining patient satisfaction after total knee replacement. J Bone Joint Surg Br ; 89 — Patient reported kneeling ability in fixed and mobile bearing knee arthroplasty.

J Arthroplasty ; 30 — Can knees kneel? Kneeling ability after total, unicompartmental and patellofemoral knee arthroplasty. Knee ; 10 — Acta Orthop Belg ; 83 — Noise, numbness, and kneeling difficulties after total knee arthroplasty: is the outcome affected? Sensitivity of the knee near the kneeling area from nerve injury was unpleasant but didn't affect kneeling ability.

It appears that the key factors were to reduce fear and provide direction on how to kneel safely and easily. Although knee flexion is needed to start kneeling, patient range-of-motion was not significantly different before and after surgery. This finding suggests that a loss of motion is not the reason patients can't or don't kneel after partial knee replacement. And problems in other joints were not a barrier to kneeling.

Patient with arthritis in other joints reported being able to kneel using the therapist's suggestions.

Given the results of this study, the authors remind us that only patients with an Oxford PKR were included. The good results need to be tested and reproduced in patients with other types of implants. Further studies may find more than one possible pattern of kneeling that could be integrated into the rehab program.

In Physiotherapy. September Tony Giantomaso Share this page. Make an Appointment. Request an Appointment. Close x. Select location Tony Giantomaso. Date and time. Is this request for a Telehealth appointment? A recent study shows the answer is Yes! The new findings are based on a recent study of patients that had knee replacement. Check out the protocol below. Of those who had at least some difficulty kneeling, pain in the knee was the most common reason.

This study concludes that many, if not most, patients can be taught to kneel with a relatively simple protocol. It follows that kneeling should be taught as part of the postoperative rehabilitation process.