Post-operative rehab
The weeks after surgery decide the result.
Read more about Post-operative rehabPhysiotherapy in Parktown North
The patients who most need treatment are often the least able to travel for it. Rikki treats at home across Parktown North and the surrounding suburbs, with the same assessment and the same plan.
Does this sound familiar
What happens
Every patient is different, but the shape of the work is consistent — and you will always be told what is happening and why.
Message or call with your suburb and what you need. She will confirm whether a home visit is right for you and what it costs before anything is booked.
The same history, the same examination, the same plan as at the rooms. Nothing is cut short because it is happening in a lounge.
Your stairs, your bed, your chair, your bathroom. Rehabilitating in the environment you actually have to manage in is usually an advantage, not a compromise.
Once you are driving again, sessions can continue at the practice with equipment and Clinical Pilates available.
Worth knowing
A home visit is usually thought of as a compromise — the option you take when you cannot get to the real thing. For a good deal of rehabilitation it is the opposite.
The target of a post-operative programme is not an abstract level of function. It is your staircase, your bath, the step up to your stoep, the slope of your driveway. Across these suburbs those are rarely standard: Westcliff is built on a ridge and its houses come with long stepped driveways, the older homes in Victory Park and Linden have full flights of stairs and high thresholds, and a great many of them were built when a bath was the only option.
Working on the actual obstacle is faster and more honest than approximating it on a set of steps at the rooms and hoping it transfers. It also surfaces problems nobody would have thought to mention — the bathroom door that opens the wrong way, the rug at the bottom of the stairs, the chair that is too low to stand up from.
Worth knowing
Post-operative patients make up the largest share, in the weeks before they are cleared to drive. This is the highest-value window in the whole recovery and the one most commonly lost, purely because getting to appointments is impossible for a month.
Older patients are the second group, and often the longer-term one. Where the car journey is the hardest part of the day, the treatment stops happening long before it stops being needed — and Linden in particular, with a large number of residents who have been in the same house for decades, is a suburb where a course of treatment frequently starts at home and moves to the rooms later.
Then anyone whose mobility, pain or dizziness makes travelling genuinely unsafe. And children needing chest physiotherapy, who are almost always better off in their own space than in unfamiliar rooms while unwell.
Worth knowing
Message or call with your suburb and what you need. You will be told whether a home visit is the right option for you and what it costs before anything is booked — there is no arrangement here where a fee appears at the end of the appointment.
The visit itself is a full appointment, not a shortened one. The same history, the same physical examination, the same explanation of what is wrong and the same programme as at the rooms. Nothing gets cut because it is happening in a lounge.
You do not need to prepare anything much. A clear bit of floor, a firm chair and a bed are usually enough; if a specific piece of equipment is needed you will be told beforehand. Once you are driving again, sessions can move to the rooms, where the equipment and Clinical Pilates are available for the strength phase.
Worth knowing
Parktown North, Parkhurst, Westcliff, Victory Park, Craighall Park, Rosebank, Linden, Greenside and Emmarentia. If you are just outside that ring, ask — it is often still possible.
Before you book
Parktown North, Parkhurst, Westcliff, Victory Park, Craighall Park, Rosebank, Linden, Greenside and Emmarentia. If you are just outside that ring — Parkview, Forest Town, Saxonwold, Dunkeld, Craighall or Blairgowrie, say — ask, because it is often still possible depending on the day.
There is a travel component, and you will be told exactly what the visit costs before it is booked rather than afterwards. Send a WhatsApp with your suburb and what you need and you will get a straight answer.
As much as you can reasonably give, because home visits have to be grouped geographically to fit around appointments at the rooms. Urgent chest physiotherapy is the exception and is fitted in as quickly as possible — for that, phone rather than message.
Very little. A clear stretch of floor, a firm chair and a bed cover most of it. If you are post-operative, have your surgeon’s protocol and any scan reports to hand, even if only as photographs on a phone. If anything else is needed for your specific case, you will be told when the visit is arranged.
Yes, and most patients do. Home visits usually cover the early weeks; once you are driving again the rooms are the better place for the strength and conditioning phase, because the equipment and Clinical Pilates are there.
Also treated here
The weeks after surgery decide the result.
Read more about Post-operative rehabHelp clearing your chest and breathing more easily — adults and children.
Read more about Chest physiotherapyThe ache that has been there for months, and the one that arrived overnight.
Read more about Neck & back painNext step
Book online at any hour, or send a WhatsApp if you would rather describe the problem first and be told honestly whether physiotherapy is the right call.