Part of Total knee replacement rehab
Knee replacement exercises in the first 2 weeks: what they are for
Warning signs, and when to get help
What are the knee replacement exercises for the first 2 weeks?
The work in this fortnight is movement, not strength. Getting the knee to bend. Getting it to straighten. Switching the thigh muscle back on. Keeping the blood moving in the calf and foot.
On this site those exercises are stage 1 of total knee replacement rehab, which is where the numbers live: ankle pumps for the calf and the circulation, quad sets, short arc quads and the straight leg raise for the thigh, heel slides, the seated knee bend and the assisted seated knee bend for bending, and the knee extension stretch and seated heel prop for straightening.
This page gives no second set of repetitions. Each exercise page has its own starting dose and the program carries the frequency the NHS leaflets ask for, and your physio will adjust both to your knee. If the exercises you were given on the ward differ from that list, do theirs, because they were chosen for the operation you actually had.
Nothing here replaces a limit. If your surgical team told you how much weight to put through the leg, or how far to bend the knee, that instruction decides what you do and this page does not override it. If you are not sure whether you were given one, that is a question to ask rather than a gap to fill in yourself.
Four answers are worth having in writing, and the first fortnight is when they matter. How much weight goes through the leg. Whether there is a limit on how far the knee bends or how hard you push it straight. Whether anything you were sent home wearing, a splint, a brace or a knee immobilizer, stays on while you do the exercises or comes off for them.
And who to contact with a question or a worry, including out of hours. NICE expects the last of those to be given to you twice over: information after surgery should include who to contact with questions or concerns, and anyone doing their own rehab at home should have a point of contact for advice and support (NICE NG157).
The program carries two cautions that cover every exercise in this window. Breathe steadily through each repetition instead of holding your breath, which matters most in the thigh exercises where you tighten the muscle and hold it. And check with your doctor before you start if you have a heart or lung condition, or blood pressure that is not under control.
The NHS early precautions run alongside the exercises rather than apart from them: do not kneel on the new knee until your doctor says you can, do not sit with your legs crossed for the first 6 weeks, avoid twisting your knee, bending down or reaching up as much as possible, and leave household tasks that involve lifting or moving anything heavy for the first 3 months. No exercise in this window asks you to kneel.
When to get help, and how quickly
Several things in this fortnight should not wait until morning or until the next appointment, and a few should not wait at all. The warning signs at the foot of this page are grouped under three headings for that reason. The ones under "Get emergency help now" are a call to emergency services rather than to your team. The ones under "Get help today" are a call to your surgical team today rather than a note for your next appointment. The ones under "Book an appointment" still need raising within the next few days rather than at your next routine visit.
Have the numbers before you need them. Write the ward or surgical team number down, with whatever out of hours route they gave you, and keep it somewhere you can find it at 2 in the morning instead of hunting for it then. NICE expects you to be told who to contact with questions or concerns after surgery, and to have a point of contact while you do your rehab at home (NICE NG157).
Sudden breathlessness, chest pain or coughing up blood is an emergency call, even if the leg looks normal. A calf that becomes newly swollen, warm or tender needs advice the same day, and so does a leg that is swelling further from one day to the next instead of settling. So does a wound that is more red, hot or painful, is leaking, or has edges coming apart, and so does a temperature or feeling hot, cold and shivery.
Three more are in the list because they get explained away. Tiredness and breathlessness that build up over days after the operation. A knee whose pain keeps climbing while you rest rather than only when you move. And a fall or a knock, even a small one you walked away from, which goes back on the crutches and gets checked the same day, because a break in the bone around a new knee is not always obvious at first.
Another earns its place by being sudden and unmistakable. If you suddenly cannot straighten the knee or lift the leg straight when you could before, often with a pop or a tearing feeling, keep your weight off it and ring your team that day.
One is slow rather than sudden, and it is the one people save for their next appointment. A knee that is not bending or straightening any further from week to week, or is getting stiffer, goes to your physio or surgical team within the next few days, and you keep using your walking aid until they have looked at it. A stiff new knee is easier to free up early than late, so the date you raise it matters: where a knee has to be freed up under anesthetic, doing that earlier, generally within about 6 to 12 weeks of the operation, is associated with regaining more movement than doing it later, although how much any one knee gains also depends on how stiff it was to begin with, on who is suitable and on the rehabilitation afterward (Hosanee and colleagues, 2026).
The warning signs at the foot of this page give the full set with the urgency attached to each. If you are unsure which one you are looking at, make the call anyway: your surgical team would far rather hear from you in week one than in week four.
What is the first fortnight actually for?
For keeping what the operation gave you, which is a knee that moves. That sounds modest and it is the whole job.
Rehabilitation starts far earlier than most people expect. NICE says a physiotherapist or occupational therapist should offer rehabilitation to people who have had a planned first hip or knee replacement, on the day of surgery if possible and no more than 24 hours after it, including getting moving, a home exercise program and advice on managing daily activities (NICE NG157). By the time you are at home, you are continuing something rather than starting it.
The reason the early work is movement and not strength is partly swelling and partly the muscle. OrthoInfo describes moderate to severe swelling in the first few days or weeks, and a swollen knee does not bend or straighten easily. Lifting and loading comes in the window after this one, covered on the exercises for weeks 2 to 6.
Bending and straightening are a pair, and they get very unequal attention. Bending is the half people watch, because the change in it is visible and it feels like the work. The straightening exercises are the ones to defend in this fortnight, since they are long, undramatic and easy to postpone to a day that never comes.
How do you fit the exercises into a day at home?
Short and often, which sounds easy and is the thing most people get wrong. The common pattern is one long morning session, after which the leg is sore and nothing else happens all day.
What works better is hanging each round on a thing you already do. A set while the kettle boils. Another at the end of whatever you are watching. Another every time you sit down again after a trip to the bathroom. The last ones once you are in bed.
Nobody keeps to a timetable in the first week after an operation, because the week is a blur, but most people can follow a habit they already have.
Several things sit around the exercises and decide whether they are possible at all.
Start with pain relief, which is part of the rehabilitation and not something beside it. South Tees puts it as effective pain relief in the early stages being what allows you to move and exercise more comfortably, and in practice that means working out which part of your day falls after a dose rather than before one. The same service warns that patients are given only a week of pain relief on leaving hospital and should contact their family doctor in good time if more is needed, so make that call before you run out.
Two things ride along with the stronger painkillers. OrthoInfo says to use opioids only as your doctor directs and to stop them as soon as your pain begins to improve, so the target is enough to move on and no more than that. They can also leave you drowsy or lightheaded, which is the argument for standing up slowly with a hand on something solid for the first few minutes after a dose. A fall in these first weeks can damage the new knee and may lead to further surgery (OrthoInfo), and that is a dear price for standing up too quickly.
Then the leg up. The NHS asks you to keep your leg raised as much as possible to reduce swelling, and not to stand for long periods, which it says can make your ankles swell.
Ice goes with it. South Tees names ice and elevation as the main tools for controlling the swelling, and says they can help the pain too. How long and how often is on the main program and from your own team. One caution belongs to this fortnight specifically: the skin around the scar is often numb (OrthoInfo), and numb skin cannot warn you that the ice has been on too long, so check that patch with your eyes rather than waiting to feel it.
And the stockings. The NHS asks for compression stockings to be worn at all times, taken off only for washing, and says most people need them for at least 6 weeks. Put them on the list of things someone else helps with, because getting them on a freshly operated leg is harder than it looks.
One instruction belongs here and is easy to break by accident. Do not sleep with a pillow under your knee (NHS). An evening with the leg propped that way on the sofa counts too, so it is better known in week one than in week three. That instruction is about hours spent resting with the knee held bent, and it is not the same thing as the small rolled towel the quad sets page asks you to press the back of your knee down into for a few seconds at a time. Where the leg is propped up to bring the swelling down, the support goes under the heel and calf with nothing under the knee itself.
Is it meant to hurt this much?
Usually, yes. This is the sorest part of the whole recovery, and OrthoInfo describes some pain with activity and at night as common for several weeks after surgery. The bending and straightening exercises are meant to reach a firm stretch, so discomfort in them is expected rather than a sign to stop.
The shape of it tells you more than the level does. Pain after this operation should have started to turn the corner within the first few days, and OrthoInfo says to speak to your doctor when it has not begun improving a few days after surgery. Worth knowing in week one, because "it is meant to hurt" is true and is still not a reason to sit at home with pain that is going the wrong way.
The night is the part people are least prepared for. Pain at night is in the same OrthoInfo sentence as pain with activity, and broken sleep in the first fortnight is ordinary. If the nights are the worst part of your day, say so to your surgical team, because the timing of your pain relief is something they can change.
There is one exception, and it is the important half of this section. A knee that is more swollen and more painful does not always mean you overdid the exercises: an overdone session and an infection around the new joint can both produce it, and from the inside they feel much the same. If the knee is also hot or red, if the pain keeps building while you are resting rather than only when you move, if you have a temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery, or if the wound is leaking, do not treat it as training soreness. Get medical advice the same day, at the level the warning signs below set out. A normal temperature is not an all clear either: OrthoInfo's page on infection after a joint replacement says fever is no longer considered a sign of an infection after a joint replacement, and that the signs can be as little as mild redness and swelling.
Reassurance has a limit, and this is where it sits. Everything in that list stays exactly as urgent as it reads, no matter how early in the recovery you are and no matter how reasonable the alternative explanation sounds.
Is this much swelling, bruising and tiredness normal?
Mostly yes, and more of all three than people are warned about. OrthoInfo describes moderate to severe swelling in the first few days or weeks, then mild to moderate swelling for about 3 to 6 months. The South Tees leaflet lists what it calls the common symptoms after this operation: pain that aches or feels bruised, swelling down the leg and into the calf and around the scar, redness or bruising around the scar, tiredness and fatigue, and a leg that feels heavy and weak. A swollen ankle and a bruised calf are the ordinary state of the leg in week one rather than evidence that something has gone wrong.
The exception is the direction of travel, and this is the one place in the fortnight where reassurance could cost you something. OrthoInfo asks you to tell your doctor about new or severe swelling, because it can be the warning sign of a blood clot, and the signs it lists for a clot include increasing swelling of the calf, ankle or foot and increasing pain in your calf, or tenderness or redness above or below the knee. So a leg that is swelling further from one day to the next instead of settling, or a calf that is warm, tender or newly painful, goes to your surgical team the same day and not into a decision about tomorrow's exercises. Nobody tells a clot from ordinary post-operative swelling by looking at the leg, which is why the question is never whether the knee is swollen but whether it is getting worse.
Tiredness has the same shape. Being wiped out for a fortnight is ordinary and South Tees lists it among the common symptoms. Tiredness that keeps deepening, with breathlessness doing small things, a racing heart, dizziness or skin that looks paler than usual, is the version to act on the same day, because blood loss around this operation can leave you short of red blood cells and a slow bleed or an infection shows up the same way. That line is in the warning signs below, with what to do.
Looking after the wound in the first 2 weeks
Keep the wound area clean and dry, and let the dressing be changed only as your team directed (OrthoInfo). The instruction most easily broken in week one is about water. Avoid soaking the wound until it has thoroughly sealed and dried, which rules out baths, pools and hot tubs, and follow your own team's instruction on how long to wait before you shower or bathe (OrthoInfo). Teams differ on that date, so theirs is the one to use.
A soak is not a small thing with a new joint under the skin. After this operation an infection can sit in the wound or deep around the implant, and while a minor wound infection is usually treated with antibiotics, a major or deep one can mean more surgery and removal of the parts (OrthoInfo). That is the whole reason for the dry dressing and the fuss about baths.
A nurse takes the stitches or clips out at about 10 days (NHS), and the compression stockings go back on after washing, as above. If the wound becomes redder, hotter, more swollen or more painful, starts to leak or drain, or its edges begin to part, that is a same day call to your surgical team, as the warning signs below set out.
Why will your leg not lift, and what do you do about it?
Because the muscle has been switched off, not used up. This is the most frightening normal thing in the fortnight, and almost everyone puts it one of two ways: the leg is not mine, or the thigh has gone to sleep.
This has been measured, and the part of the measurement worth having is not how weak the leg gets but why. Twenty people with osteoarthritis in one knee were tested about 10 days before and about 27 days after a first knee replacement. The thigh was profoundly weaker a month after the operation, and the authors put that down mainly to the muscle failing to switch on when asked rather than to the muscle wasting: the activation failure contributed nearly twice as much to the loss as the physical shrinking did, and how much the knee hurt during the contraction explained very little of it (Mizner and colleagues, 2005).
Twenty people is a small study, and it tested people at about a month rather than in your first fortnight, so take it as the explanation for what you are feeling and not as a measurement of your own leg.
That changes what to do about it. A muscle that will not switch on does not respond to one heroic effort, and trying to force a straight leg raise on a leg that cannot yet find the switch mostly produces frustration. What it responds to is frequent, small attempts at the switch itself, so quad sets and short arc quads come before the straight leg raise in the program.
If your knee bends as you try to lift the leg straight, the program says what to do and asks you to tell your physio, so read that rather than pushing on. If you suddenly cannot lift the leg or straighten the knee when you could before, that is a different thing entirely and it is in the warning signs below as a same day matter.
Getting about indoors in the first 2 weeks
Keep the aid, and keep it longer than you feel you need it. OrthoInfo warns that a fall in the first few weeks after surgery can damage the new knee and may lead to further surgery, which is the whole argument in one sentence. How long you use a walker, frame or stick covers the order the aids come down in and how to tell you are ready.
Keep the trips short and repeated, the same way as the exercises. The pattern in week one is a single ambitious outing after two good days indoors, and the bill arrives the same evening, long after the outing felt fine.
Stairs want a decision made in advance, and OrthoInfo calls them a particular hazard until the knee is strong and mobile. Ask the ward physio to take you up and down a staircase before you leave hospital, and ask about your own stairs rather than a generic one: how many, which side the rail is on, and whether there is a rail at all. Sleeping downstairs for the first week is a sensible answer where the stairs are not yet realistic, and moving a bed is easier before the operation than after it, which what to pack and prepare at home covers. The foot order on stairs is on the main program.
What tells you the first 2 weeks are over?
An appointment, mostly. The NHS puts the removal of stitches or clips at about 10 days, and that visit is the natural end of this window: the wound gets looked at by someone who knows what it should look like, and you get to ask the questions that have built up.
The other marker is your team's say-so. The program moves you on when the early exercises feel manageable and your team is happy with how you are walking, which is a judgement about you and not a date.
What changes next is the kind of work, not the amount. The exercises for weeks 2 to 6 covers the shift from getting movement back to building load, and the dip in progress that a lot of people hit in weeks three and four. If you want the whole arc instead, the recovery timeline week by week sets out what each source says and who said it.
Related exercise programs
Warning signs
Get emergency help now
- Emergency: since your operation, you suddenly become short of breath, you get chest pain or pain in your upper back that may be worse when you breathe in, you cough up blood, your heart is beating very fast, or you faint. Call emergency services straight away, even if your leg looks normal. These can be signs of a blood clot in the lungs (pulmonary embolism).
- Emergency: after a fall or a knock, you cannot put weight on the leg, your knee or thigh is very painful, or the leg looks out of shape or shorter than the other. Go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. If you cannot get up, call emergency services. A broken bone around a knee replacement is rare, but it needs treatment in hospital. If a smaller fall or knock leaves the knee newly painful, swollen or bruised, even if you can still walk on it and the leg looks normal, stop the exercises, go back to your crutches or sticks and keep your full weight off that leg, and get it checked by your surgical team the same day. A break in the bone around a new knee is not always obvious at first, and walking normally on one can move the broken ends apart.
Get help today
- Same day: a calf or thigh that is newly swollen or getting more swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, has swollen veins that are sore to touch, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that does not fit your injury or condition, or that feels different from normal muscle soreness after exercise. This can be a sign of a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis), especially after surgery, an injury, time in a cast or boot, a long trip or a spell of being much less mobile than usual. Get medical advice the same day. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
- Same day: swelling in the operated leg that is increasing from day to day instead of settling, including swelling spreading into your calf, ankle or foot, pain in your leg or calf away from the wound, increasing pain in your calf, or tenderness or redness above or below your knee. Get medical advice the same day. Swelling is expected after this operation, and it can be moderate to severe in the first days or weeks, but OrthoInfo asks you to tell your doctor about new or severe swelling because it can be the warning sign of a blood clot, and increasing swelling of the calf, ankle and foot, increasing calf pain, and tenderness or redness above or below the knee are all on its list of clot signs. Your clot risk does not end on the day your tablets or injections do. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
- Same day: you are taking tablets or having injections to lower your risk of a blood clot and you notice blood in your urine, black or bloody stools, bleeding gums, a nosebleed that goes on and on, bruising far beyond what the knock would explain, or you are being sick or coughing up blood. Get medical advice the same day, and do not stop the medicine on your own. Bleeding more easily is the known trade-off of these medicines (NHS), and the dose or the type may need looking at. Go to an emergency department if the bleeding will not stop, you feel faint, or you bang your head while you are taking it, even if you feel fine, because the NHS advises getting urgent advice after a head injury on medicine that thins your blood and only a hospital can scan for a bleed inside the head.
- Same day: your wound becomes more red, hot, swollen or painful, starts to leak or ooze, is still leaking in the second week or has never stopped, has pus coming out of it or its edges start to come apart, or you have a high temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. Redness can be harder to see on brown or black skin. If you feel very unwell, go to an emergency department. If you have a very high or very low temperature, shivering you cannot control, you are breathing very fast or finding it hard to breathe, you are confused or your speech is slurred, your skin, lips or tongue look blue, gray, pale or blotchy (on brown or black skin this can be easier to see on the palms of the hands or soles of the feet), or you have a rash that does not fade when you press it, call emergency services, as this can be sepsis.
- Same day: in the days or weeks after your operation you are getting more and more tired, breathless doing everyday things such as walking to the toilet or getting dressed, dizzy or lightheaded, your heart is racing, or your skin looks paler than usual. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. Tiredness and breathlessness that build up like this are not part of the usual recovery. Blood loss during and after a knee replacement can leave you short of red blood cells (anemia), which is treatable, and a slow bleed or an infection can show up the same way. If breathlessness comes on suddenly, or you get chest pain, call emergency services, as the emergency line above explains.
- Same day: since your operation, the redness, warmth, swelling or pain in your knee is not getting better or is getting worse, for example the knee pain keeps building both when you move and when you rest. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day, as this can be a sign of infection around the new joint. If you feel very unwell, go to an emergency department.
- Same day: you suddenly cannot straighten your knee or lift your leg straight when you could before, often after a pop, a tearing feeling or a stumble, or you notice a dip just above or below your kneecap, or you suddenly cannot put weight on the leg, even without a fall. Keep your weight off it and contact your surgical team the same day. If you cannot reach them that day, go to an emergency department. A tendon at the front of the knee may have torn, and a repair works better when it is done soon.
- Same day: a leg or foot that is getting weaker, for example your foot drags, catches on the ground or slaps down when you walk (foot drop). Get medical advice the same day. Until it has been checked, use your walking aid, hold a rail on stairs and keep off uneven ground, because a foot that catches trips you and a fall onto a new knee can damage it. If the weakness is getting worse by the hour, go to an emergency department.
- Same day: new numbness, tingling or burning in your lower leg or foot, beyond the numb patch of skin around your scar. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. If it started after a fall or an injury, or your foot or toes turn cold, pale, blue or gray, call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself.
- Same day: dizziness, lightheadedness, blurred vision or feeling faint when you stand up that is new for you, does not pass within a minute or two, keeps happening, or has made you fall. Sit or lie down, and get medical advice the same day. This can be a drop in blood pressure on standing (postural hypotension), a type of low blood pressure, which the NHS lists among the causes of falls, and your doctor can check it. Tell them about your medicines, because some can cause it. If it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting or lying still, call emergency services. If you faint, call emergency services, even if you come round quickly, because the NHS says to call them when someone faints while exercising or is badly hurt, and a fall onto a new knee can damage it.
- Same day: dizziness or feeling faint during or after exercise, other than the brief lightheadedness as you stand up covered in the line above, without any of the emergency signs above. Stop the exercises and get medical advice the same day. If you faint, it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting still, or you cannot stand or walk steadily, call emergency services.
Book an appointment
- Within a few days: your pain has not started to ease within the first few days after the operation, or pain that was settling starts climbing again day by day. This is not an emergency, but tell your surgical team or your doctor rather than waiting for your next routine appointment, because OrthoInfo says to speak to your doctor when pain has not begun improving a few days after surgery. Get medical advice the same day instead if the knee is also hot or red, if you have a temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery, or if the pain keeps building while you are resting as well as when you move, as the lines above explain.
- Within a few days: your knee is not bending or straightening any further from week to week, is getting stiffer, or feels unstable or gives way when you stand or walk. This is not an emergency, but contact your physio or surgical team within the next few days rather than waiting for your next routine appointment, and keep using your walking aid until they have checked it. A stiff knee is easier to free up early than late: where it has to be freed up under anesthetic, doing that earlier, generally within about 6 to 12 weeks of the operation, is associated with regaining more movement than doing it later, although how much any one knee gains also depends on how stiff it was to begin with, on who is suitable and on the rehabilitation afterward. So the date you raise it matters (Hosanee and colleagues, 2026). If the knee has given way and let you fall, or it gives way on stairs, hold a rail and use your walking aid every time, and stay off stairs on your own until you have been seen.
- Within a few days: you have had a fall, even if you were not hurt, or you keep tripping, stumbling or feeling that your legs might give way. Book an appointment with your doctor within a few days and ask about a falls assessment. Tell them about every fall, even the ones where you were not hurt.
Common questions
What exercises should I do in the first 2 weeks after a knee replacement?
The ones your ward physio gave you, which in most programs are a bend exercise, a straighten exercise, something to switch the thigh on and something to keep the calf working. On this site those are stage 1 of the total knee replacement rehab program, where each one has its own page, its own video and its own starting dose. This page does not give a second set of numbers, because two doses for the same exercise is how people end up doing neither.
Is it meant to hurt this much?
Usually, yes, and that is the most common question in this fortnight. OrthoInfo says some pain with activity and at night is common for several weeks after surgery, and this is the sorest part of it. South Tees makes the practical point that effective pain relief, particularly in the early stages, is what lets you move and exercise more comfortably, so pain relief is part of the rehabilitation rather than separate from it. OrthoInfo also says to speak to your doctor when pain has not begun improving a few days after surgery, so the direction it is heading in matters as much as the level. What is not ordinary soreness: pain that keeps building when you are resting as well as when you move, a knee that is hot or red, a temperature, or a wound that is leaking. Those are in the warning signs below and they need help the same day.
Why can I not lift my leg straight?
Because the muscle has been switched off rather than worn out, and that has been measured. Twenty people with osteoarthritis in one knee were tested about 10 days before and about 27 days after a first knee replacement, and the thigh was profoundly weaker a month after the operation. The useful part is the reason: the muscle failing to activate on command contributed nearly twice as much to that loss as the muscle getting smaller did (Mizner and colleagues, 2005). It is not weakness you can fix by trying harder in one go: it comes back through short, frequent attempts at the switch, which is what the early thigh exercises are for. Tell your physio if the knee bends as you try to lift the leg, because the program has a specific answer for that.
How often should I do the exercises in the first week?
Little and often, and the numbers are on the program rather than here. The total knee replacement rehab page carries the frequency the NHS leaflets ask for, and each exercise page gives its own starting dose. Your physio will adjust this, and if your team gave you something different, theirs is the one to follow.
How do I get upstairs to bed?
Settle this before the first night rather than at the top of the stairs. Ask the ward physio to take you up and down a staircase before you are discharged, since practicing stairs is a normal part of getting you home, and ask them specifically about your own stairs: how many, which side the rail is on, and whether you have one at all. If the answer is that stairs are not realistic for the first week, sleeping downstairs for a while is a reasonable plan and not a failure. The foot order for going up and coming down is on the main rehab program, and it is worth reading before you need it rather than after.
References
- NHS. Recovering from a knee replacement. Page last reviewed 9 September 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/tests-and-treatments/knee-replacement/recovery/
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Total knee replacement. OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/treatment/total-knee-replacement/
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Activities after total knee replacement. OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/recovery/activities-after-knee-replacement/
- American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Infection after joint replacement. OrthoInfo. https://www.orthoinfo.org/en/diseases--conditions/joint-replacement-infection/
- South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Post total knee replacement management. Patient information, 26 February 2025. https://www.southtees.nhs.uk/resources/post-total-knee-replacement-management/
- Mizner RL, Petterson SC, Stevens JE, Vandenborne K, Snyder-Mackler L. Early quadriceps strength loss after total knee arthroplasty. The contributions of muscle atrophy and failure of voluntary muscle activation. Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (American). 2005;87(5):1047-1053. https://doi.org/10.2106/JBJS.D.01992
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Joint replacement (primary): hip, knee and shoulder. NICE guideline NG157. Published 4 June 2020. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng157
- Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. NICE recommends rehab on same day as surgery for joint replacement patients. 10 June 2020. https://www.csp.org.uk/news/2020-06-10-nice-recommends-rehab-same-day-surgery-joint-replacement-patients
- Hosanee S, Elebo N, Sikhauli N, Pietrzak JRT. Reluctant knee: understanding and managing stiffness after total knee arthroplasty. International Orthopaedics. 2026;50(9):2337-2346. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00264-026-06905-0
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Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-10-17.
This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.