Total Hip Replacement Physiotherapy & Rehabilitation at Home
Planned hip replacement rehab in your own home across Hampshire and Wiltshire, often starting within 48 hours of leaving hospital.
Why Physiotherapy After a Hip Replacement Matters
A hip replacement relieves pain. But walking evenly and confidently, with the strength to stay independent, takes planned rehab. We provide it at home, from the first days after you leave hospital to full recovery. It is physiotherapy after hip replacement with no car journeys at all.
After hip surgery, the muscles around the joint are weak and the way you walk has changed. Without guided rehab, people can keep limping, use walking aids for longer than they need to and lose confidence. Early physiotherapy that steps up over time helps rebuild strength, protect the new joint and get you moving well again.
What We Focus On After a Hip Replacement
Every plan starts with your own goals, but these four areas shape most of the hip replacement recoveries we support at home.
Benefits of Home-Based Hip Rehab
- No need to travel while you are not yet able to drive or sit comfortably in a car
- Practical advice in your own home on precautions, chair heights, getting in and out of bed, and bathroom safety
- Exercises adapted to your space and progressed at every visit
- Close monitoring of pain, swelling and wound healing
What Your Rehabilitation Includes
- Safe transfer and mobility practice from day one
- Hip and core strengthening to correct a limp
- Balance work to help reduce your risk of falls
- Progressing from frame to sticks to independent walking
- Working towards longer walks, driving and hobbies
A Typical Hip Replacement Recovery Timeline
Hip replacement recovery time is the first thing every client asks about. Every recovery is different, and we always follow your own surgeon's plan rather than a fixed timetable. But most home recoveries follow a similar shape, with exercises building stage by stage. Knowing it helps you judge your own progress.
Settling In Safely
Getting pain and swelling under control so the exercises work. Moving with confidence on and off your own bed, chairs and toilet, and walking well with your frame or crutches. Any precautions from your surgeon are applied to the furniture you actually live with.
Building Strength
Moving from the frame towards a single stick. Targeted strengthening of the muscles around the hip to stop a limp developing. Practice on your own stairs, and your first walks beyond the front door.
Growing Independence
Walking without aids around the house and garden. Many surgeons review precautions and driving at around six weeks. We keep building balance and stamina so your confidence catches up with the new joint.
Back to Your Life
Longer walks, gardening, hobbies and normal routines. Some people choose occasional follow-up sessions to keep building strength for the long term. This is especially true if balance was a worry before the operation.
The Operation Is Half the Story
A hip replacement is one of the most successful operations there is. It takes away arthritis pain that may have held you back for years. But surgery only replaces the joint. Getting back your strength, your walking and your independence is the job of rehabilitation. Most of that now happens at home, because hospital stays after hip surgery last only days.
You will usually come home with an exercise sheet and a list of instructions. They arrive just when you are least able to take them in: sore and relieved simply to be home. Within a few days the real questions start. How far should I walk? Is this pain normal? We answer those questions in your own living room, week by week.
Working Alongside Your Surgical Team
We follow your surgeon's plan throughout. We read your discharge letter and follow the rehab steps and any precautions your consultant has set. With your permission, we keep your surgical team or GP updated on your progress. It makes no difference whether your operation was NHS or private, or which hospital did it.
The first hospital follow-up is often weeks away. In that gap, getting to any clinic is really hard: you cannot drive, car seats are uncomfortable, and the walk from a car park may be too far for now. That gap is where home physiotherapy matters most, because early habits, good or bad, are set in those first weeks.
Prehab: Start Your Recovery Before Surgery
If your operation is still ahead of you, the weeks before it are an opportunity. Going into surgery with stronger hip and thigh muscles can make the first fortnight easier and leave less to rebuild afterwards.
A prehab visit (physiotherapy before your operation) covers the exercises worth doing now and practice with the walking aids you will use on day one. We also look at your home: chair heights, getting into bed, the bathroom and the stairs. Then everything is ready for the day you come home.
Involving the People Around You
Recovery goes better when the people around you know how to help. Family members are welcome at every session. We show them how to help you move safely, what to encourage and, just as important, what to leave you to do yourself. Well-meant help can quietly take over the very activity that rebuilds your strength.
When to Get Medical Help After a Hip Replacement
Aches, swelling and bruising are a normal part of healing after a hip replacement. These signs are different: get help straight away rather than waiting for your next physiotherapy visit.
Signs of a Possible Dislocation
Sudden severe hip pain can happen after a twist or bend. If the leg looks shorter or turned in or out and cannot take weight, you need urgent hospital care. Call 999 and do not try to move the leg back yourself.
A Hot, Swollen Calf or Breathlessness
A painful, swollen or warm calf can mean a blood clot: contact your surgical team, GP or NHS 111 the same day. Sudden breathlessness, chest pain or coughing up blood could mean a clot in the lungs: call 999.
Wound Changes or a Fever
Signs of infection include spreading redness, more heat or swelling around the wound, new or smelly discharge, a high temperature, or feeling shivery and unwell. Contact your surgical team the same day, using the number on your discharge letter.
Clear, Simple Pricing
- A full hour of physiotherapy at home
- Assessment, treatment and your exercise plan
- Clinical notes and progress measures
- The same physiotherapist every visit
Ways to pay: pay per visit yourself or as a family, reclaim from your health insurer with our detailed receipt, or we invoice case managers and solicitors directly.
Occasionally someone with complex needs may need a second therapist for a visit, which may carry an extra cost. We always agree this with you first.
Hip Replacement Rehabilitation FAQs
Within the first week of coming home, and ideally within days. We can often visit within 48 hours of discharge. Early guided movement is standard in modern hip replacement care. It helps prevent stiffness, builds a good walking pattern from the start, and stops the fear of moving that is hard to undo later. If you have a surgery date, contact us before the operation and we will plan the first visit around when you come home.
Most people do best with one or two visits a week in the early weeks, then fewer as strength and confidence grow. It depends more on where you are starting from than on the operation itself. There is no fixed number of sessions. We agree how often with you and adjust it as you progress.
Always. We work from your discharge letter and your surgeon's plan, including any precautions on bending, crossing your legs or twisting. If anything is unclear, we contact the surgical team rather than guess. With your permission, we report your progress back at follow-up points.
Most of our clients drive again at around week 6, but this depends on your own recovery. Check with your surgeon before you start, and tell your insurer about your operation. You need to be able to control the car fully, including an emergency stop. We work on the strength and movement you need for that.
Often a raised toilet seat, a perching stool, grab rails, and long-handled aids for socks and shoes. But every home is different. We check yours in person and tell you exactly what is worth getting and what you can skip, rather than giving you a standard list.
No, and a plateau is common, not a bad sign. It usually means the exercises no longer match where you are. They may be too easy, too hard, or aimed at the wrong thing. We reassess from scratch and find what is really holding you back: strength, stiffness, pain or confidence. Then we rebuild the plan around it.
Sessions are £90 for a full hour in your own home, everything included, and you pay per visit. You see the same physiotherapist every time, and you do not need a GP referral. After the first assessment we give you an honest view of how many sessions your goals are likely to take.
Your surgeon decides the timing, based on your operation and how your recovery is going. Swimming usually waits until the wound has fully healed. We build the strength, balance and movement each hobby needs. We practise the real positions, such as getting down to a flower bed or a gentle practice swing, so you are ready when you get the go-ahead.
Ready To Take The Next Step?
With South Coast Home Physiotherapy, you get ongoing help to keep moving and stay independent in daily life. Every session is planned around you and aims to:
- Relieve everyday aches and stiffness
- Improve strength and balance
- Reduce the risk of falls
- Make everyday movements easier
Do you need a one-off assessment, or regular physiotherapy to keep you feeling your best? Our friendly, experienced team is here to help.
Or simply fill out the contact form.
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