what suggestions would you make to practitioner with total hip replacement?
Can they attend regular yoga flow class? what activities/poses should they avoid?
Thank you!
This totally depends on the nature of the hip replacement in question. Some of the newer techniques are radically different than those preceding them. When certain muscles are cut during the procedure then certain movements are ill-advised for the student.
What procedure, when and for whom is all pertinent, but missing, here.
I personally believe that a flow class is completely inappropriate for a person with a hip replacement.
Thank you Gordon! What do you mean by the flow? The fast-moving poses?
Do you think that Iyengar approach would be more suitable for this kind of issue? Should they do yoga at all? Should these people avoid any hip opening poses?
What do YOU mean by “flow”? I just went with you.
But I use that term to reference a “style” of asana practice in which many postures are done, one right after the other with no breath and very little feeling between the poses. Surya Namaskar is a flow or vinyasa, as example.
Again, depending on what has been cut in the hip replacement procedure, I would NOT have such a student do ANY open pelvis poses at all.
A senior Iyengar teacher with therapeutic background and the ability to teach with compassion would be okay for such a person in who wants to learn asana and pranayama.
Whether they do Yoga at all would be purely up to the individual, no?
LOL, yes, I mean flow-flow, one after another:)
Understand about open pelvis poses…
Thanks
Having practised yoga for 12 years I am understandably unhappy to have developed osteoarthritis of one hip. Symptoms relating to this disease have been present for 3 years now and there is no doubt about the diagnosis: it has been confirmed by X Rays, MR scan, and surgeons’ opinions. It causes significant inability to walk and to lift things so it interferes with normal activities of life and it looks as if I need a Total Hip Replacement probably using a ceramic prosthesis with large-diameter head. I continue to practise my yoga with significant stiffness, discomfort and restriction of range of movement because the hip capsule and other tissues have become tight and there’s a lot of internal pulling. Yoga-stretching seems to help, but only for an hour, then it’s back to the same tight discomfort all over again. I’m trying to obtain information about people who have had Total Hip Replacements and who want to carry on doing yoga: I personally know of nobody who does yoga with a T.H.R. but I would feel mightily encouraged (to get on with hip replacement) were I to hear that there are hundreds or thousands of folk out there who can do yoga with total hip replacement. Are there? The only site I’ve come across is of a 92 year old lady in America who practises yoga apparently having had a hip replacement. Or is it sadly the case that once you’ve had a total hip replacement your days of doing yoga are over?
Hello Jon.
As you must assuredly know from your own teacher, yoga often defies and disproves even the most concrete of diagnoses. As a student of yoga I choose not to buy into the western medical model. Do I use parts of it here and there? Yes, when needed and in rare cases. But it is not the model I have chosen for my living.
When a student comes to me and has chosen such a model, I support them as best I am able. If that is your choosing then it’s best for me to simply say "yes it is possible to have an asana practice (or a Yoga practice if you prefer a more robust practice) after a hip replacement.
If the student wants to change the way they are living and use a more holistic approach to their healing then I have more tools to offer than the aforementioned support. However I’ve learned that both teacher and student waste their time whent he student isn’t absolutely completely entirely ready and willing to make changes and stick to them with commitment and diligence.
Let me put my question more succinctly: In the case of yoga-practitioners who undergo total hip replacements, what percentage of these are able to return to normal yoga practice (obviously after time for recovery)? Is there anybody out there who has (a) personal anecdotal knowledge of the answer, or (b) knowledge of actual statitstical data?
Anecdotal: Based on 11 years of training, practice, and teaching.
None. No person with such a surgical “repair” returns to a [I]normal[/I] (asana) practice. The asana practice following such a thing has to be mindful of what has been cut and what has been replaced, for the duration of the person’s living.
Although your answer says “None” you go on to use words which suggest that you do in fact know that people who have had total hip replacements can resume a moderate form of yoga practice “mindful of what has been cut …” I’m still not sure whether there are people out there with total hip replacements able to carry on yoga (“moderate, mindful…”) and I’m not sure if you personally know some of these people - or if you are just suggesting that for some people,you think,it might be possible to resume yoga activity but you don’t personally know of any individuals. From my own knowledge of folk I’ve known over many years I observe that none of the ones who had THR do any yoga afterwards, but then none of them did any before, I think! Out of the people I’ve known who practice yoga regularly I know of none who had total hip replacement…save only myself who is heading that way!
Hello Jon,
Just for clarity of terms, a total hip replacement differs from a partial in that a full replacement includes both the ball AND socket of the joint. Therefore the acetabulum is reconstructed as well as the head of the femur. In the partial it is typically just the head of the femur that is replaced.
You have a very rational approach. In that approach you recrafted your “question more succinctly”. That recrafting employed the word “normal” and I presumed you chose this mindfully.
So with the question phrased that way I responded to that question. There is no return to a normal asana practice after a hip replacement; either full or partial. After a hip replacement one returns to a modified asana practice that is tailored to the person. Ergo my reference to what has been replaced and what has been cut.
In my therapeutic training, which is an ongoing process and thus far has lasted over five years, I have worked with students with partial replacements. That requires me to develop a modified practice for that person. While I have not directly worked with students who have a full replacement I have watched my teacher work with nearly every type of issue in every type of body. It is from that place that I say there is an asana practice available AND that it is not a “return to a normal” practice.
With all directness, my expertise is far more profound in working with students before they pursue a surgical or pharmaceutical remedy.
Thanks. My interest lies in what happens to those who have Total Hip Replacements: can they or can they not resume yoga? There’s a You Tube website showing a 93 year old lady in America who films herself sitting cross-legged and doing yoga after her hip replacement. But despite 40 years of medical practice I don’t know anyone who does yoga after a THR. Mind you I don’t known anyone who had a THR who did yoga beforehand. I’m not aware of any published medical studies which report ability to do yoga after THR. Most medical studies would probably be more interested in the person’s abilities in walking, gardening, climbing stairs, shopping, and suchlike, rather than yoga. So I’m still interested to find out from the yoga community how many people out there who have had Total Hip Replacements are able to carry on doing yoga, after a sensible few months of recovery, and to what extent they are able. It’s the risk of dislocation which is the big factor, and because of this I suspect most surgeons would advise against doing yoga with a THR, but, again, I know of no surgeons who are confident that their patients may undertake yoga in time.
You’re welcome.
gordon
[QUOTE=jon1;74691] So I’m still interested to find out from the yoga community how many people out there who have had Total Hip Replacements are able to carry on doing yoga, after a sensible few months of recovery, and to what extent they are able. .[/QUOTE]
Jon, I’m teaching a private yoga class for a guy after THR, in addition he got DDD, broken sacrum and few other things. HE HAVE NEVER EVEN done any yoga before and he came because he was in pain for years. He seem to be better with the practice and he is keep coming. He came to the group class as well to “feel the flow of the yoga class”, but therapeutic yoga IS NOT A FLOW yoga. Iyengar yoga is not a flow yoga as well. I would not let someone with THR in my group class (even the restorative one) cause that person requires individual attention, unless this is not a group class for people with THR…
most of these people are in chronic pain, and yoga poses is just 30% of the class…
Haha, the irony is that o have started the post and now im going to upload the file with THR yoga program:) please notice that this is GENERIC program for POSTERIOR HR. Anyways you will have to ask you Doc or yoga therapist for you particular case if this is gonna work for you. But we are practicing for few month with my students and it is seem to be good for them.
oops… i can not share excel files…please email me of you want it