The postoperative rehabilitation program for Achilles tendon rupture can generally be divided into 5 stages, including protection and healing period, early joint activities, early muscle exercises, late muscle exercises, and full recovery of sports skills.
1. Protection and healing period: this period is usually 0~6 weeks after the injury, which is a period of braking and requires rehabilitation exercises such as dorsiflexion, inversion, eversion, plantarflexion, and so on, under the guidance of the doctor.
2. Early joint movement: this period is generally 6~12 weeks after the injury, you can follow the doctor’s instructions to wear footwear, heel pads, take off the crutches and wear shoes to gradually carry out rehabilitation training.
3. Early muscle exercise: this period is usually 12~20 weeks after the injury, this stage needs to carry out active exercise to restore the normal physiological function of the ankle joint and muscles.
4. Late plyometric exercises: this period is generally 20~28 weeks after the injury, this stage needs to strengthen the training of dorsiflexion, inversion, eversion, plantarflexion, etc., and increase the difficulty of training with the help of instruments to restore the level of sports.
5. Full recovery of sports skills: this period is generally 28 weeks to 1 year after the injury, this stage can be one-legged jumping, quadrant jumping and other ways of single-leg exercise.
The above post-surgical rehabilitation exercises for Achilles tendon rupture are only a general plan, the specific recovery cycle and actual operation should be evaluated by a professional physician or rehabilitator according to the actual situation.