Recovery of a broken tibia

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   Our user asked: "I am 17 years old and about 9 weeks I broke my tibia. I was in a full leg cast for 6 weeks now I have an air cast (boot) that I don't wear because it's uncomfortable. I've been with that for about 3 weeks. I'm trying to walk and I am not able to place a lot of pressure on it. I am curious on about how long it should be before i should be capable of walking and if there are any exercises that I could be doing in order to help me start walking again?"

Ask a PT Response: "My first suggestion would be for you to participate in physical therapy if you are able to. Prolonged immobilization can result in atrophy of muscles and resorption of bone. You will need to work on regaining strength, range of motion and learning how to walk again. When my patients have their hard cast removed after sustaining this type of injury, it can take on average anywhere from 4-8 wks for my patients to develop the ability to demonstrate normal/close to nomal gait. Exercise progression is usually in the form of open chain exercises (ie ankle alphabet, ankle AROM, etc.)->partial weight bearing-> (ie. BAPS board, half foam roller, etc.)->full weight bearing (ie. partial lunges, heel raises/toe raises, etc.). Great care must be taken to not have the patient perform too much too soon as this could set the patient back."

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Ask a PT Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: Jul 07 2008 Status: Offline Points: 954	Post Options Post Reply Quote Ask a PT Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Recovery of a broken tibia Posted: Jul 06 2009 at 11:17am
	Our user asked: "I am 17 years old and about 9 weeks I broke my tibia. I was in a full leg cast for 6 weeks now I have an air cast (boot) that I don't wear because it's uncomfortable. I've been with that for about 3 weeks. I'm trying to walk and I am not able to place a lot of pressure on it. I am curious on about how long it should be before i should be capable of walking and if there are any exercises that I could be doing in order to help me start walking again?" Ask a PT Response: "My first suggestion would be for you to participate in physical therapy if you are able to. Prolonged immobilization can result in atrophy of muscles and resorption of bone. You will need to work on regaining strength, range of motion and learning how to walk again. When my patients have their hard cast removed after sustaining this type of injury, it can take on average anywhere from 4-8 wks for my patients to develop the ability to demonstrate normal/close to nomal gait. Exercise progression is usually in the form of open chain exercises (ie ankle alphabet, ankle AROM, etc.)->partial weight bearing-> (ie. BAPS board, half foam roller, etc.)->full weight bearing (ie. partial lunges, heel raises/toe raises, etc.). Great care must be taken to not have the patient perform too much too soon as this could set the patient back."

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