Part of Total knee replacement rehab
Knee replacement exercises after 6 weeks: the quiet window
Warning signs, and when to get help
What are the knee replacement exercises after 6 weeks?
Strength, balance and stairs, and they are a genuinely different set of exercises from the ones before them.
They are stage 3 of total knee replacement rehab, which is where the numbers and the set-up live: sit to stand without using your hands, step-ups and stair practice on a low step with something to hold, single leg stance on the operated leg, the supported single leg squat and the slow-lowering eccentric squat for controlling the knee under your own weight, and walking with longer steps if your steps are still short or uneven.
The two squats need asking about by name. The program carries a default depth limit for them for anyone whose surgeon has not given them one, with the reasoning and the research behind it set out there. How deep you go is your surgeon's answer and then the program's, and this page gives no figure of its own. Nothing here changes a limit your team gave you either, on depth, on weight through the leg, or on anything else.
This page gives no repetitions, sets or frequency. What it explains is what the window is for, and what it costs the people who skip it. If you are not through the loading work yet, the exercises for weeks 2 to 6 is the window before this one, and there is no prize for arriving here on the day you turn six weeks.
A few rules apply across all of them. Keep a counter or a sturdy chair within reach for every standing exercise. Breathe steadily through each repetition instead of holding your breath, and check with your doctor before you start if you have a heart or lung condition or blood pressure that is not under control. And if you have had a fall in the last 12 months or feel unsteady, keep your hands on the support for the whole of the single leg work and both squats, including the way down in the slow-lowering squat, and practice only when someone else is at home, because a fall onto a new knee can damage it.
What is this window for, and why does progress go quiet?
This window is for getting strong enough to stop thinking about the knee. For most people the limiting factor has moved to the muscle and to confidence, which are both slower and less visible to improve.
That is not permission to drop the bending and straightening work. Keep it going until your team is satisfied with the range, and there are two different reasons for that depending on which knee you have. If your range is already where your team wants it, movement is easier to hold on to than to win back, and a knee that spends every evening propped in a bent position stiffens quietly.
You do not have to judge your own range by eye. OrthoInfo's expectation after this operation is that most people can almost fully straighten the replaced knee, and bend it far enough to climb stairs and to get in and out of a car. That is the plain test, and the straightening half of it counts every bit as much as the bending, because a knee that will not come flat is harder to walk on than a knee that is a few degrees short at the other end.
If your range is still short, the reason to raise it now is timing. Freeing up a stiff new knee usually means a manipulation under anesthetic, where the surgeon bends and straightens the knee while you are asleep to break up the scar tissue holding it (OrthoInfo). An earlier manipulation, generally meaning within about 6 to 12 weeks of the operation, is associated with regaining more movement than a later one, although how much any one knee gains also depends on how stiff it was to begin with, on who is suitable for it and on the rehabilitation afterward (Hosanee and colleagues, 2026). That is a decision with a window on it rather than one that keeps, so a knee that has stopped bending or straightening any further, week to week, is a phone call now and not a question for your next routine appointment.
Your team will want to know why it is stiff before anyone puts it down to scar tissue. Infection, the position of the components and a knee that is unstable are looked for and excluded first, and that is the other reason this belongs in a phone call rather than in a decision you make at home (Hosanee and colleagues, 2026). The movement you do get back comes from working at it regularly rather than from forcing it, and a knee shoved hard into a bend it will not give you is usually more swollen and less willing the next day.
That is why it feels quiet. Movement comes back in increments you can see and describe. Strength comes back in increments that show up only in what you manage to do, and nobody notices the week they stopped planning around a flight of stairs. Weeks six to twelve are often the most productive and the least satisfying part of the recovery at the same time.
The research sits in roughly the same place. A review of 18 randomized trials with 1,739 people found that physiotherapy exercise after a recent knee replacement improved physical function and pain at 3 to 4 months compared with minimal physiotherapy, that the benefit ran to 6 months when only the higher quality studies were counted, and that no long-term benefit was identified overall. The authors pointed out that this rested on a few small, underpowered trials and called for better ones (Artz and colleagues, 2015).
So exercise in this window has decent short-term evidence behind it and no promise attached for the years afterward. The other things it buys, leg strength, balance and steadiness on stairs, are worth having for their own sake whether or not a trial measured them.
A plateau here is also rarely what it looks like. In clinic it is usually a program that has not got any harder in a month, a knee that is still swelling enough to limit what it will do, or confidence rather than capacity. The one to rule out properly, instead of training through it, is a knee that needs looking at, and the warning signs below say which patterns need a call.
Why do people stop here, and what does it cost them?
Because walking has come back, and walking feels like the finish line. The exercises start to look like homework for a problem you no longer have.
What gets dropped first is predictable: the standing strength work and the balance work, which are the two that need setting up, need somewhere to hold on to, and never feel urgent. OrthoInfo answers that directly by saying you can walk as much as you like but that walking does not replace the exercises your doctor and physical therapist prescribed.
The cost shows up in the things walking does not train. Getting out of a low chair without hands. Coming down a staircase one foot after the other, which asks the thigh to control the knee as it bends under your weight and is the last thing to return. Standing on the operated leg long enough to put a sock on. Stepping up onto a curb carrying shopping.
A person can walk a long way on the flat and still fail every one of those, so the main program has a section on strength returning in a particular order.
The other cost is falling, and it is the one with a consequence attached. OrthoInfo warns that a fall in the first few weeks after surgery can damage the new knee and may lead to further surgery, and balance work is the part of the program that addresses it directly. Plenty of people are still on a stick at this point, indoors or outdoors or both, and how long you use a walker, frame or stick has the checks for putting it down. If you are older, have fallen in the past year or feel unsteady, balance and falls prevention is designed to follow on from stage 3, and strength for older adults is the wider strength program to move into.
How long should you keep doing the exercises?
OrthoInfo's answer is at least 2 months after surgery for the exercises your doctor and physical therapist prescribed. That is a floor rather than a ceiling, and it is the only clear figure any of the sources here puts on it.
Past that, the answer has two halves that pull against each other. Nobody can show you a trial that promises a further gain for every extra month you keep going, and Artz and colleagues did not identify any long-term benefit, which is a gap in the evidence rather than a finding that the exercises stop working. At the same time, strength that is not maintained goes away again, which is true of everybody at every age and not a fact about new knees.
What works in practice is a change of framing rather than a longer course. Two or three of these exercises folded into ordinary life, kept at a level that is actually hard, beats a full program done for another six weeks and then abandoned. The ones most people keep are sit to stand and the stairs, because both are things they have to do anyway.
The recovery timeline week by week sets out what the sources say about the months past this window, including that swelling and the last of the strength run well beyond it.
Do you need more physiotherapy, or can you carry on alone?
NICE gives criteria for this, and they read as a checklist. It recommends supervised outpatient rehabilitation, in a group or one to one, for people who are struggling with activities of daily living, who still have problems with function, or who find that self-directed rehabilitation is not meeting their rehabilitation goals. It also expects anyone doing their rehabilitation at home to understand their goals and to have a point of contact for advice (NICE NG157).
If you recognize yourself in any of those three, ask. Being discharged from physiotherapy earlier, or having sessions run out, is not a ruling that you no longer need it, and in most systems asking is how you get reassessed.
Doing it at home is a reasonable route for many people, and there is trial evidence behind that. In CORKA, 621 people judged to be at risk of a poor outcome after knee replacement were randomized to a home-based program delivered by rehabilitation assistants with therapists supervising them, or to outpatient physiotherapy, and at one year the function scores showed no clinically or statistically significant difference between the two (Barker and colleagues, 2020). Note what that trial compared: a structured, supported home program against clinic sessions, not a program against being left alone with a leaflet.
Ask for help if the knee has stopped improving week to week, which is in the warning signs below with its own timescale, or if you have not managed to make the program any harder in a month, since that usually needs someone watching you do it.
What about the gym, the bike and longer walks?
Longer walks are the easy half. OrthoInfo says you can walk as much as you like, with the reminder that it does not replace the exercises, so build distance the way you built everything else and judge it by the following day rather than by how it felt at the time.
The gym and the bike need your surgeon's go-ahead, and the reason is that they cover an enormous range of loads. OrthoInfo names golfing, bicycling and pickleball among the lower impact activities, and says these are preferable to high-impact activities such as jumping, jogging and skiing. Read that list for what it is. It answers which activities suit a new knee over the years it has to last, not which ones you may take up in week seven, and OrthoInfo puts a return to sport behind your doctor's go-ahead rather than behind a date.
Pickleball is the one on that list worth a separate question, because the knee gets sudden stops and turns in it, and the NHS asks you to avoid twisting your knee as much as possible while you are recovering. So it needs clearance and a build-up, not a straight read across from low impact to safe now. If you have had a hip or knee replacement, get the go-ahead from your surgeon before you try jumping or hopping. Many surgeons advise against jumping and hopping after a joint replacement for good, not just for the first months, because each landing sends high impact through the new joint.
Swimming has a timing point attached to it that people miss: OrthoInfo describes it as an excellent low-impact activity after a knee replacement and ties starting it to the wound having healed enough, on your doctor's guidance. So it is a question for your team rather than for the pool attendant.
Flying belongs in the same list of things to ask about rather than book. OrthoInfo asks you to speak to your doctor before you travel by plane, because the pressure changes and sitting still can swell the operated leg, particularly while it is still healing. Get the answer from your own team, since the clot signs in the warning signs below are the reason the question is worth asking at all.
Two NHS restrictions also run across the whole of this window, and they catch people in the garden rather than at the gym. Do not kneel on the new knee until your doctor says you can, and leave household tasks that involve lifting or moving anything heavy, vacuuming or carrying shopping for instance, for the first 3 months (NHS).
Kneeling itself does not damage a knee replacement. OrthoInfo says kneeling is sometimes uncomfortable but that it is not harmful, and a review of the research found no clinical reason why people should not kneel on a replaced knee, as long as kneeling on a rough or uneven surface is avoided, because damaging the skin over a new joint lets bacteria in and an infected joint replacement is a far bigger problem than a sore knee. The same review points to Versus Arthritis advice that you can try kneeling on a soft surface from 3 months after the operation (Wylde and colleagues, 2019). Your own team's answer comes before both of those dates, and in practice most teams want the wound and the scar healed before you try. When you do have the go-ahead, kneel on something soft, and get down and back up with your hands on something solid, because the floor is where a fall onto a new knee tends to happen.
We have no exercise page for a stationary bike, so cycling and swimming for knee arthritis is the nearest thing here. Read it knowing it was written for an arthritic knee rather than a replaced one, and take the saddle height and the resistance question to your own physio.
Returning to a sport, or to a physical job, is a bigger question than this page covers and it depends on the sport, the operation and your surgeon. Ask your physio to plan the build-up with you rather than working it out from an article.
When to contact your physio or surgical team
By this stage you are mostly managing on your own, which is exactly why the slow-moving problems get missed.
Contact your physio or team within a few days if the knee has stopped bending or straightening any further week to week, is getting stiffer, or feels as though it gives way, and keep your walking aid until that has been checked. Raising stiffness early matters, because a stiff new knee is easier to deal with early than late, and a manipulation gets more movement back the earlier it is done, so this one does not keep until your next routine appointment (Hosanee and colleagues, 2026).
Get medical advice the same day for a knee that becomes hot, red or more swollen, for a wound that is still not settling, for a temperature or feeling hot, cold and shivery, for a calf that becomes newly swollen, warm or tender, for a leg that is swelling further from week to week instead of settling, and for a sudden loss of the ability to straighten the knee or lift the leg. Sudden breathlessness or chest pain is an emergency call.
One more belongs to the years and not to this window. Pain in a new knee that had settled and has come back, or that is building month by month, needs a review from your surgical team rather than patience, and a new joint can become infected long after the operation. OrthoInfo names increased pain or stiffness in a joint that had been working well among the signs of an infection around a new joint, says the signs can be as little as mild redness and swelling, and says fever is no longer considered a sign of one. Both are in the warning signs below with how quickly each needs attention.
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 now, day or night
- Since your manipulation under anesthetic, you have severe pain in the knee or thigh, you cannot put weight on the leg, you cannot straighten the knee or lift the leg straight when you could straight after the procedure, the leg looks a different shape, or the knee is heavily bruised, swollen or tight. A manipulation works by stretching and tearing tissue that has tightened, and although problems are uncommon, the bone around the implant can break and the tendon at the front of the knee can be damaged during it. Contact your surgical team straight away, day or night, and if you cannot reach them, go to an emergency department the same day. Keep your weight off the leg until you have been seen.
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 week to week 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. Some swelling is expected for months after this operation, but OrthoInfo lists new or increasing swelling in the calf, ankle and foot, increasing calf pain, and tenderness or redness above or below the knee among its warning signs of a blood clot in the leg, and asks for them to be reported to your doctor rather than watched. 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: at any time after your operation, even years later, new pain in your new knee along with a high temperature or feeling hot, cold or shivery, or a knee that becomes hot, red or swollen, which counts on its own, with or without pain and with or without a temperature. Contact your surgical team or get medical advice the same day. A new joint can become infected long after the operation, and that needs treating quickly. A normal temperature is not an all clear: OrthoInfo says fever is no longer considered a sign of an infection after a joint replacement, that the signs can be as little as mild redness and swelling and sometimes there are none at all, and that increased pain or stiffness in a joint that had been working well is one of them. So do not wait for a temperature before you report new or increasing pain in your new knee to your surgical team.
- 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: since your manipulation under anesthetic, the knee is stiffening up again and has lost movement it had gained, or pain is stopping you doing the exercises you were given. Contact your physio or surgical team within the next few days rather than waiting for your next appointment. The movement the surgeon gains is held on to by moving the knee in the days and weeks straight afterward, so a knee that is closing up again is worth telling them about early. Some of the range gained during the procedure is normally lost before it settles, so this is about a knee that keeps closing up rather than one that has eased back a little.
- 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.
- Routine: pain in your new knee that had settled and has come back, or pain that is getting worse month by month, for example pain that starts as soon as you stand up and begin to walk. This is not an emergency, but ask your surgical team for a review, as the parts of a new joint can loosen or wear over the years. Get medical advice the same day instead, not a routine appointment, if the knee also becomes hot, red or swollen, or you have a high temperature or feel hot, cold or shivery, or the pain is building week by week rather than month by month. A new joint can become infected years after the operation, and the two can feel similar at first.
Common questions
What exercises should I do after 6 weeks following a knee replacement?
Strength, balance and stairs. On this site they are stage 3 of the total knee replacement rehab program: standing up from a chair without using your hands, step-ups, stair practice, standing on the operated leg, and two squat exercises that train the thigh to control the knee under your own weight. The program carries the doses, the support you keep within reach and the depth limits for the two squats, and the depth your surgeon gives you comes first. Start stage 3 when your team is happy for you to, not because six weeks have passed. Keep the bending and straightening work going alongside these until your team is satisfied with your range, and ring them now, rather than waiting, if the knee has stopped moving any further week to week.
How long should I keep doing the exercises after a knee replacement?
Longer than you will want to. OrthoInfo asks for the exercises your doctor and physical therapist prescribed to be continued for at least 2 months after surgery, and makes the point that walking as much as you like is not a substitute for them. In practice the people who end up strongest are the ones who keep two or three of these going as part of ordinary life rather than as a course of treatment with an end date. Nobody can promise you a gain for every extra month, and this page does not.
Why has my progress slowed down?
Because the kind of progress has changed. Movement comes back in big visible steps, and strength comes back in small ones that only show up in what you can do, so weeks six to twelve feel flat even when they are working. The honest research position matches that: a review of 18 trials in 1,739 people found physiotherapy exercise after knee replacement improved function and pain at 3 to 4 months compared with minimal physiotherapy, with the benefit reaching 6 months in the higher quality studies, and no long-term benefit identified overall. The authors were clear that it rested on a few small, underpowered studies (Artz and colleagues, 2015). A plateau at this point is usually a dosing or a confidence issue rather than the end of the road, which is what a physio can tell apart from a knee that needs reviewing.
Is it too late to improve if I am 3 months in?
No, and this one deserves a plain answer. Muscle responds to being loaded at every age, which is why the strength programs on this site are not time limited. What a page cannot tell you is whether the thing holding you back is strength, stiffness, swelling or something that needs looking at, and at three months that distinction is worth a professional opinion rather than another month of guessing.
Do I need more physiotherapy, or can I do this myself?
Many people do the whole thing at home. NICE recommends supervised outpatient rehabilitation, in a group or one to one, for people who struggle with daily activities, who still have problems with function, or who find that self-directed rehabilitation is not meeting their rehabilitation goals (NICE NG157). That is a set of criteria rather than a judgement about willpower, so read it as a list to check yourself against. The CORKA trial gives some reassurance about doing it at home: among 621 people judged at risk of a poor result after knee replacement, a home program delivered by rehabilitation assistants with therapists supervising worked about as well as outpatient physiotherapy at one year (Barker and colleagues, 2020).
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/
- Artz N, Elvers KT, Lowe CM, Sackley C, Jepson P, Beswick AD. Effectiveness of physiotherapy exercise following total knee replacement: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. 2015;16:15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-015-0469-6
- Barker KL, Room J, Knight R, et al. Outpatient physiotherapy versus home-based rehabilitation for patients at risk of poor outcomes after knee arthroplasty: CORKA RCT. Health Technology Assessment. 2020;24(65):1-116. https://doi.org/10.3310/hta24650
- 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
- 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
- Wylde V, Artz N, Howells N, Blom AW. Kneeling ability after total knee replacement. EFORT Open Reviews. 2019;4(7):460-467. https://doi.org/10.1302/2058-5241.4.180085
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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.