Physiotherapy in Parktown North
Post-operative rehabilitation
A good operation and a poor recovery still add up to a poor outcome. The rehabilitation is not an optional extra afterwards — it is the half of the job that determines what you get back.
Does this sound familiar
Surgery we rehabilitate after
- Knee — ACL and other ligament reconstruction, meniscus repair, total knee replacement
- Hip — total hip replacement, arthroscopy
- Shoulder — rotator cuff repair, stabilisation, replacement
- Spinal surgery, including discectomy and fusion
- Ankle, foot and wrist procedures, and fracture fixation
What happens
How this is treated
Every patient is different, but the shape of the work is consistent — and you will always be told what is happening and why.
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Step 1
Start from your surgeon’s protocol
Rikki works closely with several orthopaedic surgeons. Your rehabilitation follows the plan for your specific procedure and its restrictions — not a generic template.
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Step 2
The early weeks
Swelling, pain and range of movement, plus getting you moving safely. If you cannot drive yet, this is where a home visit usually makes the most sense.
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Step 3
Strength and control
Rebuilding what the surgery and the weeks before it took away, at the pace the tissue can genuinely tolerate.
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Step 4
Back to normal life
Stairs, driving, work, the garden, the golf course. We aim at your actual life, and we are specific about what you need to be able to do.
Worth knowing
Close to where the surgery happened
A great deal of the orthopaedic surgery in this part of Johannesburg is done at hospitals within a few minutes of the practice — among them Netcare Rosebank, the Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre and Netcare Milpark. That proximity matters more than it sounds, because post-operative rehabilitation is not one appointment. It is two sessions a week for a stretch of months, at exactly the point in your life when driving is difficult and everything takes twice as long.
The practical consequence is that the rehabilitation you will actually attend is the one that is close. A programme at the far side of the city is a programme that gets missed in week three, and the weeks after surgery are the ones with the most to lose.
Rikki works closely with several orthopaedic surgeons, and your rehabilitation follows the protocol for your specific procedure rather than a generic template. Where the surgeon’s instructions differ from the usual pattern, the surgeon’s instructions win.
Worth knowing
Roughly what to expect, by operation
The ranges below are the general timelines reported in published rehabilitation protocols. They are not promises, and your surgeon’s protocol governs your own case — but knowing the shape of it in advance makes the first month a great deal less bewildering.
ACL reconstruction runs in phases: early recovery and range of movement, then strength and neuromuscular control, then running, then agility and landing, then return to sport. Around 120 degrees of knee bend by about four weeks is a common early marker. Return to cutting and pivoting sport is typically somewhere in the nine-to-twelve-month range, and should be decided on testing, because re-injury risk is highest in the first months back.
Total knee replacement starts with pain and swelling control and basic mobility in the first fortnight, moves to restoring full straightening and bend past ninety degrees by around six weeks, and builds strength and function through to about twelve weeks, by which point many patients are well down the road. Full extension is the one that matters most and the one people most often let slide.
Total hip replacement has a critical healing window in the first six weeks, with hip precautions — not bending past ninety degrees, not crossing the legs, not twisting through the waist — commonly continuing for something like twelve weeks depending on the surgical approach and the surgeon’s preference. Early work is circulation, gait, transfers and getting daily life back.
Rotator cuff repair is the most patient-testing of the four. Roughly the first six weeks are in a sling with passive movement only, active movement is introduced somewhere around six to twelve weeks, and resistance work usually waits until about twelve to sixteen. A full course commonly runs three to six months depending on the size of the tear.
Worth knowing
The weeks you cannot drive
Most patients cannot drive for the first few weeks after surgery, and that is precisely when the rehabilitation matters most. It is the single most common reason a good operation ends in a mediocre result: not a surgical problem, and not a lack of willingness, just three or four weeks of missed sessions at the beginning.
Home visits exist for that gap. The assessment is the same, the programme is the same, and there is an argument that the house is the better room — the target of the rehabilitation is your actual staircase, your actual bath and your actual driveway, and in Westcliff, Victory Park or Linden those are rarely standard. Once you are driving again, sessions move to the rooms where the equipment and Clinical Pilates are.
Worth knowing
If you cannot drive yet
Most patients cannot drive for the first few weeks after surgery, which is exactly when rehabilitation matters most. Rikki offers home visits across Parktown North and the surrounding suburbs so those early sessions are not the ones you miss.
Before you book
Questions patients ask about this
Usually sooner than people expect. Most protocols begin within days, with early work aimed at swelling, circulation, protected range of movement and safe mobility rather than strength. The strengthening comes later, and pushing it early tends to cost time rather than save it.
Your surgeon will give a date or a set of restrictions. Bring those to the first appointment — a photograph of the protocol on your phone is perfect.
Not to be seen. Physiotherapists in South Africa are first-line practitioners, so you can book directly. It is genuinely useful to have the surgeon’s protocol, though, because it sets the restrictions and the milestones for your specific procedure.
Separately, some medical aid plans have their own administrative requirements about referrals or authorisation before they will pay a claim. That is a scheme rule rather than a clinical one, and it is worth checking with your plan.
Usually there is cover, but how much and from which part of your benefits varies considerably between schemes and between plan options within the same scheme. Physiotherapy is often paid from day-to-day benefits or a medical savings account, which can run out late in the year.
Rehabilitation connected to certain conditions may qualify under Prescribed Minimum Benefits, which are funded separately. The only reliable answer is the one your own scheme gives you for your own plan, so it is worth a phone call before the first appointment.
Yes — that is one of the main reasons home visits exist here. Send a WhatsApp with your suburb and the operation you have had, and Rikki will confirm what is possible and what it costs before anything is booked.
Then the protocol wins. Surgeons vary their restrictions for good reasons — the approach used, what they found in theatre, the quality of the tissue they were repairing — and your rehabilitation is built from their plan, not from a general template. If something in the protocol is unclear, it gets clarified with the rooms rather than guessed at.
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Next step
Book an appointment
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.