The Dangers on Not Getting Out of Bed After a Procedure or Injury

It takes two to three times as long for you to regain the strength.

So as an orthopedic surgeon, I take care of a lot of people who have severe injuries and really bad pain. And a lot of times when we're in the hospital or after an injury, we don't want to get up and move around. It is absolutely critical that after an injury, after a procedure, after some sort of crazy thing that happens in your life that you don't lay in bed. I tell people that if you lay in bed, there's a good chance that if you do it for too long, you're gonna die there. We know that laying in bed causes a massive amount of weakness, especially in our older patients. So if you're aged 65 or older, it takes two to three times as long for you to regain the strength that you lose as it does for you to lose it. So the longer you lay in bed, the longer you lay there, the worse your muscles get. The weaker your muscles get, the more your joints hurt when you get up and move, and the more likely you are to develop problems like pneumonia, urinary tract infections, bed sores. And your joints become less mobile, your muscles become weaker, and your overall system becomes so compromised that it makes you ill. If you're laying in bed in a hospital and you tell the hospital staff that you can't or won't get up, then they legally can't make you get up. You might have a physical therapist that's pretty aggressive and encourages you to get up, but they legally really can't make you get up. So critically important for you, if you've had an injury, if you're hospitalized, if you have to be in bed to at least get up and move around three times a day for 10 minutes of time, don't lay in that bed. Get up into a chair. Remember, if you lay in that bed, you may die there.