NUH physiotherapist shares post meniscus tear surgery care advice that includes wound care, ways to reduce pain and swelling, rehabilitation exercises to do and the activities to avoid.

Wound care & ways to reduce pain and swelling:
Keep the wound dressing over the knee clean and dry. If there’s any bleeding, please call the clinic during office hours and go to A&E after office hours. Take the painkillers as per your doctor’s advice and apply the ice pack that you are given to reduce swelling.

For the first four weeks, you must wear your knee brace and use the crutches as per your surgeon’s advice in order to reduce the strain on your meniscus and prevent re-injury. You should wear the brace when you are walking and while you are sleeping. If you are showering, seated or lying down and remaining still, you may take the brace off. Sit on a stool while you are showering and after you are done, make sure you do not twist your knee when getting up from the stool.

Rehabilitation exercises:
In the first four to six weeks after the surgery, you may need to attend physiotherapy sessions on a weekly basis. However, your physiotherapist will advise you on the frequency of your sessions based on your progress. You may need to attend physiotherapy session for around 9 months. The frequency of physiotherapy session may reduce after 3 months of surgery.

At NUH, rehabilitation starts in the ward on the same day after surgery. Your physiotherapist will teach you simple knee range of motion exercise, quads exercise, ankle pumping exercise, swelling management with cold pack and how to how to walk with crutches in the non-weight bearing way (no weight is applied on the operated leg).

Activities to avoid:

For the first three to four weeks after the surgery, you should try to avoid the following actions:

- Prolonged standing and walking
- Forceful knee bending
- Pivoting action

For the first three months, avoid jogging or running activity. You may start to do slow jogs after four months of your surgery and after you’ve cleared the physical examination with your physiotherapist. You may return to contact sports around nine to 12 months after the completion of your rehabilitation programme. For the first four to six months after the surgery, avoid doing deep squats.

00:00 - Introduction
00:21 - About the wound
00:51 - Management of pain and swelling
01:16 - Wound care
01:41 - Showering tips
02:04 - Removal of stitches
02:16 - Rehabilitation exercises
02:25 - Ankle pumping, static quadriceps, assisted heel slide exercises
02:40 - Swelling management with ice pack
02:42 - Crutch use (non-weight & partial weight bearing)
03:02 - Frequency and duration of rehabilitation
03:29 - Consequences of non-compliance to rehabilitation
03:51 - Knee brace & crutch use
04:21 - Right way to remove knee brace
04:29 - Return to my usual activities post surgery
04:56 - Return to running & sports
05:15 - Return to work
05:45 - Activities to avoid post-surgery
06:11 - Return to driving
06:35 - Life after surgery

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About National University Hospital (NUH) (Singapore):
NUH is Singapore's major tertiary hospital and referral centre with over 50 medical, surgical and dental specialties. It is the only public hospital in Singapore to offer a comprehensive suite of specialist care for adults, women and children as well as paediatric kidney and liver transplant programme, in addition to kidney, liver and pancreas transplantations for adults.

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