What is Hydrotherapy?

Hydrotherapy, aka aqua therapy, is doing physical therapy exercises with a specialist in a warm pool and releasing the muscles. Hydrotherapy is very beneficial for some of our patients who had limb-lengthening surgery.

The Importance of Hydrotherapy for Limb-Lengthening Surgery Patients

As we’ve mentioned before, Hydrotherapy is some kind of physical therapy method and it is especially beneficial for Precice 2 patients during their limb-lengthening process. 2-3 Weeks after the limb-lengthening surgery with Precice 2 method, the wounds get healed and the patient can have hydrotherapy.

The Precice 2 patients can’t stand for more than 20 minutes because the intramedullary nails have a risk to break, therefore, they can only do physical therapy exercises in bed during their lengthening process.

With hydrotherapy and regular physical therapy, Precice 2 patients can achieve muscle relief.

After the surgery with LON (Combined) method, on the other hand, open wounds on the patient’s leg occur because of the external fixators. The LON (Combined) patient’s skin around the pins gets cleaned and their medical dressing gets changed regularly. However, there is a risk of infection if the pins touch the water, therefore, the LON (Combined) patients can’t have hydrotherapy during their lengthening process. They can have hydrotherapy after 1-2 months since their lengthening process has ended. Hydrotherapy will speed up the patient’s transition to normal life and decrease their muscle pain. Of course, the patient should continue doing their physical therapy exercises regularly during their lengthening process.

You can ask for the pdf of physical therapy exercises that are done during the lengthening process from our patient consultant.