BRENT STEPHENS, MD, is a Health First Medical Group Orthopedic Surgeon and Chief of Surgery at Viera Hospital. Before medical school, he was a Division I scholarship athlete with the expectation of being drafted by a Major League Baseball team, but a significant knee injury curtailed his hopes. His injury ended his baseball dreams but serves his patients’ dreams of recovery, he recently shared with Florida Today. 

Rehabilitation following an injury and surgery to fix it is challenging, especially for younger and athletic people, but patients should strictly follow their surgeon’s and physical therapist’s guidance for rehabilitation.

At Georgia Southern University, Brent Stephens, MD, was a prospect. He expected to be drafted in one of the earlier rounds by a Major League Baseball team. The week before that final season, while training, he significantly injured his knee. He rehabbed dutifully, but his professional prospects dimmed. ‘

Dr. Stephens recently shared five tips with readers of Florida Today’s regular fitness and nutrition feature.

Rehab Is So Slow It’s Hard

Coming off surgery, your physical therapist will gauge your passive range of motion (that is, the range of motion achieved when someone else moves your arm or leg). Subsequent rehabs will not be much more strenuous. So many patients – especially young people and athletes – want to speed up their rehab. Don’t.

Dan Reynolds, PT, DPT, is a rehab supervisor at Pro-Health & Fitness. He says the more reconstructive the surgery, the longer the rehabilitation, and the more likely frustration will ensue – “especially among younger patients and athletes.”

“A lot of [my role] is emphasizing, there’s a healing process. It’s my job to hold them back, to tell them, if we do too much too early, we can damage the surgical repair.”

Rehab Is Neurological

The human body and mind adapt to injuries and inabilities. Twist an ankle, and we naturally hobble. Injure a shoulder, and we subconsciously adapt to immobilize the elbow. 

When the injury is fixed with surgery, a part of rehabilitation is unwinding those adaptations. Your atrophied muscles need to be rebuilt. Your neurological responses to motion and imbalance need to be restored, too.  

Rehab Is Frustrating, Depressing

At Georgia Southern, a sports psychologist introduced us to “red light, green light.” In your process, if you're feeling good, it’s a green light. Go. If you’re doubting yourself, maybe the light is yellow. If you’re really negative, it’s red, and that’s when you back off and take stock.

If you’re looking at a red light but go to the gym anyway to “train through it,” that’s when you make decisions that can hurt you. 

Are you at a red light? Stop. Talk to someone. 

Rehab Should Not Be Painful … Usually

A rehab session, with a trainer or on your own, should not be painful, and if it is that’s something to discuss with your trainer or physician, but there are times where it may be. Stiffness in the muscles and ligaments in and around the joint can be painful to move, and that’s another way that a therapist is key.

Get Back to What You Love

Here at Health First, we want you to get back to what you love. We live in a place that encourages active lifestyles. If you golfed five days a week but haven’t because of pain in your follow through, please make an appointment.

Read the full feature in Florida Today HERE.

For joint surgical repair patients, the path to what you love runs through rehabilitation. Don’t go barreling through it. 

The point of surgery is we want you to get back to your sport, to rebuild your quality of life. As long as it’s not something dangerous or detrimental at one’s age, let surgery and rehabilitation get you back on the court, the course, the water or the route.

Brent Stephens, MD, is a Health First Medical Group Orthopedic Surgeon specializing in shoulder and elbow repair. He did a shoulder and elbow surgery fellowship at Florida Orthopaedic Institute in Tampa. He did his residency at Howard University in Washington D.C. where he also went to medical school. Today, he is chief of surgery at Health First’s Viera Hospital and Medical Director for Orthopedic Services at Health First Medical Group. Email him at brent.stephens@hf.org. To make an appointment, call (321) 434-3350.