Christopher EllisCEO Dynamic Physio Therapy

Infection and Stiff Knee After Knee Replacement

15 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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1:00

In this segment Christopher Ellis outlines the primary concerns patients should monitor after knee replacement surgery. He emphasizes infection prevention, advising patients to keep the surgical wound clean, avoid swimming pools, and watch for fevers above 100 °F as a sign to contact their physician. He then explains that a subset of patients develop knee stiffness due to inadequate adherence to prescribed exercises, leading to fibrosis and limited range of motion. For these cases, surgeons may perform a manipulation under anesthesia (MUA), manually breaking up scar tissue while the patient is sedated. Ellis describes MUA as uncomfortable and something to avoid through diligent post‑operative rehab. The overall message is proactive wound care and consistent exercise to minimize the risk of infection and the need for MUA.

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What do you want to worry about after you have the surgery? Well, I'd say there's like 4 typical things. Number one is infection, and this is in no particular order. So the very beginning until that thing closes up, you just want to keep it clean. Definitely don't want to be in a pool or anything like that. If you do get a fever over 100 degrees, that's a sign of infection. You got to call the doc. The other thing is a MUA, a manipulation under anesthesia. So this is something that doesn't happen often. This is for The folks that don't really do their exercises, don't do the stretches, and they stiffen, they get fibrosis, a lot of scar tissue lays down and they get, you know, what we call stuck bent. Their knee doesn't have the range of motion that they need to operate as a human. So, what they can do is put you under anesthesia and they manipulate, manually manipulate that joint. It's not fun. I've seen it done to people. They don't feel very good afterwards because they basically crank on that knee. So, something you ideally avoid. Now, this one's