Hip surgery and health hazards
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Hip surgery can result in potential sources of danger to an individual who is on home rehabilitation, and the risks can be worse if the patient has arthritis, diabetes, and high blood pressure. It is good to take care of any medical condition like arthritis, diabetes, and high blood pressure ahead of hip replacement as this reduces risks (Beswick, Blom, Lenguerrand, Whitehouse and Wylde, 2018). Blood clots might occur in the veins of the patient's leg and cause even more danger if the clots happen to break off and relocate to vital organs like lungs, heart, or brain. The doctor concerned can prescribe medicines to enhance blood thinning and minimize the risks. Infection at the site of the incision or in the underlying tissues neighboring the new hip might also happen, but the home caregiver with the advice of the doctor can treat the infection with antibiotics. However, some inflammations might result in damage to the prosthesis, in which case replacement of prosthesis is necessary through another surgery. Dislocation sometimes happens because of a particular body posture in which the ball in the artificial joint leaves its socket in the early months after the surgery. The doctor can treat this anomaly using a brace to fix the hip in the right position. If the health hazard recurs severally, the doctor needs to perform another surgery to stabilize the hip. Loosening of the hip is rare, but when it happens, the new hip joint fails solidly to fix in the bone. That can happen immediately or several days after the incision and painful. It can take between ten and twenty years for the artificial hip joint without loosening and can take even longer time if the stress one puts on the joint is not much. Loosening requires another surgery to fix it. Another common health hazard is Fracture, in which healthy parts of the hip joint might crack during the operation. However, if the cracks are very narrow and shallow, they heal without further medical intervention. In case the fractures are large, the doctor stabilizes them with screws, or a metal plate (Beswick, Blom, Lenguerrand, Whitehouse and Wylde, 2018).
Health and homecare challenges follow hip joint replacement, but most of them are manageable. Concerning healthcare challenges, hip replacement hurts like any other surgery, and the patient must psychologically be ready for significant discomfort for about three days after the surgery. That leads to limited mobility, and one has to depend on pain medications and home caregivers to attend to even simple daily activities like visiting the bathroom (Chona and Kihunah, 2019).
Some home care challenges the patient might experience include tripping hazards, which result from throw rugs and floor mats found in the bathroom or kitchen. The solution to this challenge would be removing such rugs or fixing them on the floor using carpet tape to have the edges down. The use of an ordinary bathroom is also challenging as it denies the patient a good quality of life after the surgery. The caregivers must hence upgrade the bathroom by installing a comfort height toilet (Anoushiravani, Barinaga, El-Othmani, Saleh, and Sayeed, 2017).
On financial implications, the patient might require outside resources that are cost-friendly to create a safe environment. That means getting the right tools like handy gadgets in the first few weeks to help retrieve items from cabinets as that might be challenging. The caregivers should borrow and avoid buying most of these items, as the patient will need them only a few weeks after the surgery. The caregivers can source for the items from the community for either free or at low-cost (Lassnig, Schröttner, and Siegl, 2015).
Considering motivation and resistance to change for a recovering patient of hip joint replacement, it is worth noting that emotional factors also influence treatment and recovery. Some of the psychological obstacles to speedy recovery include pain perception, fear, anxiety, and lack of social support. The caregivers must utilize positive verbiage when discussing with the patient about the progress to enhance positivity. Rapport and good communication between the home caregiver and the patient must be transparent. That promotes trust and adherence to the rehabilitation program and increases motivation leading to better recovery since some patients might develop resistance to some programs (McEwen and Nies, 2019).