How do you approach to post-operative patients from a PRI perspecitve? We have so many ACL reconstruction patients and I would like to know how you use PRI?
You will need to stay close to the physician rehab protocol early in the process (to complement early phases of necessary healing), but as soon as they can bear weight and walk without assistive device or external bracing, they should be able to incorporate functional PRI activities. Remember, PRI activities are just gait and breathing, so if you can walk and breathe you should be able to incorporate PRI activities into the program. We have been able to greatly accelerate post ACL reconstruction rehab protocols by finding the appropriate left AFIR and right AFER muscles as early in the process as possible. And if both left and right “hole control” and hamstring activation is optimized, the risk for post surgical complication goes way down.
-James Anderson, MPT, PRC
