Hip Precautions

For one of my Level II fieldworks, I did a three-month internship in an acute orthopedic unit at an area hospital. As such, I saw predominantly hip and knee replacements, as well as several limb-lengthening patients. One day, I was looking something up on Wikipedia about something hip related and noted that there was no article on hip precautions. As occupational therapists, we’re worried about patients being able to complete their ADL’s while being safe. I figured that I would write an article about hip precautions on Wikipedia, and it hasn’t been edited since I created it, so I’m happy it was well written. Hopefully, it was well described as well.

Here is the article:

Hip precautions refer to certain things that one should not do after having a hip replacement. Since the hip joint is very weak from surgery, doing any of these three things can greatly increase the risk of hip dislocation.

The three hip precautions are:

• Bend
• Cross
• Twist

One should not bend the hip past an angle of 90 degrees (L-shaped). This is especially difficult when sitting on toilet seats, which tend to be low. Therefore, an occupational therapist will educate patients in techniques on sitting on low toilet seats, as well as telling them to obtain raised toilet seats.

Crossing refers to any time one leg crosses the other. Since it is difficult not to cross your legs when sleeping, many doctors will recommend that a patient sleep with abductor pillows, which keep the legs separated.

Twisting refers to putting a lot of weight on one leg and twisting to retrieve an object. For example, if one is cooking a light meal, they should not twist their bodies to retrieve a pot from a high shelf, rather, they should shuffle over sideways, retrieve the pot, and then shuffle back to the starting point.

I’m thinking that I should add a bit about how because of these precautions, patients with hip replacements can’t do basic ADL’s like putting socks on. After all, that is why we give them our wonderful hip kits.