Making Rounds
Physical therapy helps patients regain strength through perseverance
Surgery to repair an orthopedic injury can be complicated and delicate. It takes a skilled surgeon to get the job done right.
But after surgery, the key to a full recovery is usually in the hands of the patient. Working diligently through a consistent routine of physical therapy (PT) is essential to rebuilding strength and range of motion. And there are no shortcuts.
“Patients who aren’t keeping up with their PT can experience things like stiffness, lack of mobility or muscle weakness,” said Courtney Kinney, a physical therapy assistant at Fayetteville Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine. “They start to see pretty quickly that they aren’t getting as far as they’d like to be.”
Kinney sees a variety of cases, from older patients recovering from hip replacement to high school athletes with sports injuries. Most require several weeks or months of therapy, and some need lots of encouragement when the road seems very long.
“Usually, I’ll ask the patient what they’re trying to get back to doing,” she said. “Maybe she likes to garden, so she’ll need to be on her knees a lot. I can explain how doing the lunges she’s working on will help her get there.”
For one of Kinney’s patients, Cameron Seagroves, the goal was pretty clear: He wanted to get back to baseball. Seagroves plays for Methodist University, but last year he was sidelined by a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), a painful knee injury. Christopher J. Barnes, MD, performed the surgery to repair it.
“And then three days after surgery, I started physical therapy,” he said. “It was about seven months of consistent PT, twice a week.”
That’s at least a couple of months earlier than he thought he might be released from PT. Seagroves said his own strong will had a lot to do with his speedy success, but he also gives credit to the staff at Fayetteville Orthopedics & Sports Medicine for personalizing his routine to his level of ability and fitness.
“Sometimes I would come in and say, ‘Hey, I saw this move on Instagram,’ or ‘Maybe we could try this,’” he said. “And we’d work together and build a program that was great for me. Honestly, what they did with me in PT are probably some of the most athletic movements I’ve had to do.”
“I was scared to re-injure myself, but every time I would come back, I’d have a little more progress than the last time.” – Phillip Torres
Phillip Torres is no stranger to physical exertion either. An avid weightlifter, he has always loved the gym and enjoyed challenging workouts. After tearing his rotator cuff in a mishap at his manufacturing job, he knew he would need surgery. Daniel E. McBrayer, MD, performed a reverse shoulder replacement procedure to start Torres’ recovery.
“My first PT appointment was four days later,” he said. “That first day was excruciating, but I knew it would get easier.”
Torres knew from previous injuries that it was important not only to faithfully attend his PT appointments, but also to keep up with his assigned exercises between visits.
“I was going to therapy and then doing the routine again on my own at home that same day,” he said. “A lot of people don’t do the homework, and then they don’t have the results they want.”
Torres said there were definitely times when he felt uncertain about his progress.
“I was scared to re-injure myself,” he said, “but every time I would come back, I’d have a little more progress than the last time.”
A little over four months after his first appointment, Torres was doing pull-ups unassisted. He was glad to be graduating from PT, but sad to say goodbye to his physical therapist, Kaitie Bogue, whom he’d grown to consider a friend.
“She was the catalyst for my success,” he said. “From the first appointment, she knew what I meant when I said, ‘I want to be back where I was before the injury. I’m not going to settle for less.’”
Whether the patient is a gym fanatic or an octogenarian, Kinney said, she aims to meet them where they are and encourage them toward their own personal goals.
“It’s important that they understand what we’re doing, and that it’s in their best interest,” she said. “It can be really hard in the beginning, but if you just trust the process, it really does get easier.”
The best part for her is seeing a patient long after their last session, doing exactly what they wanted to do.
“Sometimes they’ll stop in to say hi,” she said, “or I’ll give them a call and see how they’re doing. And it’s really cool to see that it all worked.”
