Fractures

A fracture heals under the care of the doctor or surgeon managing it. What physiotherapy addresses is everything that happens around that, the movement, strength and confidence lost while the bone was protected, and the return to walking, working or playing sport afterwards.

That second half is where most of the lasting difference is made. Bone healing follows its own timeline fairly reliably. The stiffness, weakness and altered movement that build up during those weeks don’t resolve on their own in the same way, and they’re what determines how the limb feels six months later.

What happens to the rest of the limb

Immobilising a bone is necessary and it has predictable effects. Muscles lose size and strength quickly when they’re not being used, noticeably within the first couple of weeks. Joints held still stiffen as the surrounding tissue adapts to a shortened position. Your position sense in that limb becomes less precise, and the way you walk or use the arm changes to protect the area, which starts loading other joints differently.

None of that is damage and most of it is reversible. It does need deliberate work, which is the part that’s easy to underestimate when the fracture itself has healed and been signed off.

When physiotherapy fits in

Rehabilitation often starts well before the bone is fully healed, working within whatever restrictions your treating team has set. There’s usually useful work available on the joints above and below the injury, on the opposite limb, and on general conditioning, all of which reduces how much has to be rebuilt later.

Once you’re cleared to load the area, the focus moves to restoring movement at the affected joints and rebuilding strength through the limb, and then to the specific demands of what you’re returning to.

⚠ A suspected new fracture needs urgent medical assessment and imaging, not a physiotherapy appointment. Severe pain after a fall, an obvious deformity, an inability to bear weight or use the limb, or numbness below the injury all need to be seen now. If you contact the clinic with any of these, you’ll be told the same thing and helped to get seen.

Physiotherapy treatment after a fracture

Andrew’s assessment establishes what movement and strength you currently have, how you’re loading the limb, and what your treating team has cleared, before anything starts. Treatment then usually combines:

• Manual therapy and graded movement work to restore range at the joints that stiffened, introduced within your clearance.
• Exercise rehabilitation, progressive strengthening for the muscles that wasted, and control work to restore position sense in the limb.
• Gait and loading retraining, so the protective limp or guarded movement pattern doesn’t outlast the fracture and start causing problems elsewhere.
• A structured return to the specific things you want to get back to, whether that’s work, walking distance or sport, reassessed rather than assumed.

What to expect

Andrew will explain what stage you’re at, what’s safe to load now, and what the sequence looks like from here, working alongside whatever your surgeon or doctor has specified. Where he needs clarification on your restrictions before progressing, he’ll say so and communicate with your treating team rather than guess.