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Originally published March 25, 2025
Last updated March 25, 2025
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Recovery from surgery is a deeply individual experience, says Donald B. Longjohn, MD, an orthopedic surgeon with USC Orthopaedic Surgery, part of Keck Medicine of USC. Knowing which factors can affect recovery time may help you get back on your feet sooner rather than later.
Some determinants of how fast you recover from hip replacement surgery are the type of hip replacement surgery you have, your age, your bone quality, the diagnosis and how active you were before surgery, Dr. Longjohn says.
When you have surgery at a dedicated center, such as the USC Joint Preservation and Replacement Center, you have access to a state-of-the-art facility and a full-service, experienced orthopedic team, ranging from nurse navigators who help set up your appointments and answer all your questions, to surgeons replacing your joints, to a dedicated orthopedic nursing team, which all help reduce your recovery time. In addition, less-invasive joint replacements generally have shorter recovery times.
“Everything we do is geared toward getting patients home, where they can recover the best and where they are going to be the happiest,” Dr. Longjohn says.
Age can affect recovery time, but other factors may matter more, Dr. Longjohn says. If an 80-year-old is otherwise relatively health and active, with good-quality bone and at a healthy weight, they might recover faster from hip replacement surgery than a younger, less healthy individual.
In the United States, most of the hip implants used rely on cementless bone ingrowth technology. Hip implants are inserted into the acetabulum (hip socket) and the femur (thigh bone). Bone then grows directly into the metal implants. It takes time for the bone to grow into the implants. Bone quality can affect that process. If the bone is of poor quality, the implants may not have a stable fit in the bone and might become loose, he says. Therefore, in patients with poor bone quality, acrylic bone cement may be used to fix the implants to the bone.
“If an older patient has a lot of bone defects that require bone grafting, or is not very active and perhaps overweight, I might need to keep them on a walker for six weeks after surgery,” Dr. Longjohn says. “But if it is a young person – for example, someone in their early 60s who is active, with good-quality bone and a normal weight – then surgery is straightforward.” Some healthy older patients with good bone quality could also expect a straightforward joint replacement. For straightforward surgeries, a person might only be on assisted devices for two weeks, but it depends on the individual, he says.
Your diagnosis can really dictate how long recovery from hip replacement surgery takes. Your overall health can also affect surgery and recovery time.
“If someone has poorly controlled diabetes, that can lead to surgery being postponed because it increases infection risk,” Dr. Longjohn says. “If you are having cardiac complications, it is also important to try to keep those conditions under control and managed because that can affect your rehabilitation. I advise patients to stay in as good of health as possible to improve recovery time.”
One aspect of recovery that patients tend to worry about most is pain management, Dr. Longjohn says. At Keck Medicine, spinal anesthesia and multi-modal pain management is used to reduce pain and enhance early mobilization instead of general anesthesia and heavy doses of narcotic medication.
“Now we are preemptive with our pain control,” Dr. Longjohn says. “We use what is called multi-modal pain control. This involves oral medications – different types that work by different means. Some medicines are taken before the surgery. At the end of the hip replacement surgery, the whole joint is injected with pain medication, which really limits the post-operative discomfort. Most patients receive spinal anesthetic with intravenous sedation, so they have minimal pain right after the surgery.”
Because patients are not undergoing general anesthesia, they can start physical therapy the day of surgery to help speed up recovery time. Opioid pain medication is also generally limited to the first one to two weeks after surgery, and after that over-the-counter pain medication is used.
“There are going to be good days and bad days with pain,” Dr. Longjohn says. “So, if you do a lot of exercise and you have some pain, you should rest, use ice or cold packs and take a little bit of pain medication.”
But if the pain is getting worse or you experience abnormal fevers or wound-drainage problems, speak with your care team immediately because it might be a sign of a more serious problem or infection.
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