After surgery
The operation gets all the attention. What comes after usually does not. Most people are sent home with a sheet of exercises, a follow-up appointment some weeks away, and nobody to ask whether what they are feeling today is normal or a problem. That gap is where recovery either happens or quietly stalls, and post-operative physiotherapy at home is what fills it.
Reeflex works in your house, anywhere in Essex, which after an operation is where the real difficulty sits. The stairs you have to manage tonight. The bath you cannot get into. The chair that turns out to be too low. Those are the things we practise on, because those are the things that decide whether you get back to normal or settle for less than it.
What we help with
Reef has worked across the range, in hospitals and in people's homes. If your operation is not on this list, ring and ask rather than assuming the answer is no.
Knee and hip replacements have a page of their own. If that is what you have had, read about physiotherapy after a knee or hip replacement instead.
The gap
NHS post-operative physiotherapy is usually a short block of appointments or a group class, and it is good at what it is designed to do. What it is not designed to do is put someone in your house twice a week to watch how you actually move, adjust what you are doing as you change, and notice the compensation you have picked up without realising.
That is the whole of what Reeflex does. An assessment that measures where you are now, exercises pitched at today rather than at a textbook, and a written plan you keep. Progress gets measured, so you can see it rather than guess at it.
Reeflex works alongside your surgical team, not around it. We follow whatever protocol your surgeon has set, and where something looks wrong, heat, swelling, spreading redness, a wound that is not healing, we send you back to them rather than working through it.
What happens
Before anyone books anything, Reef will talk it through with you. If physiotherapy at home is not the right answer for your operation, he will say so.
How you move now, what has become difficult, and what you want to be able to do again. Measured properly, so progress can be measured too.
Staged to your surgeon's protocol and to where you actually are. Family kept informed, with your permission.
Real examples
Two of our written case studies follow post-surgical clients through rehabilitation at home: one after a knee replacement, one after spinal surgery. Both set out the assessment findings, the plan and the outcome measures in full rather than summarising them.
Questions
It depends entirely on the operation and on what your surgeon has said. Some protocols have you moving within days, others hold you back for weeks. Reef works to your surgeon's protocol rather than a general rule, so the honest answer is to ring and tell him what you have had done and what you were told on discharge.
No. You can contact Reeflex directly. If it would help to keep your surgeon, GP or NHS physiotherapist in the loop, we are happy to do that with your permission, and it often makes the rehabilitation better.
Reeflex is home visits. For most people after surgery that is the right way round, because the problems are in the house rather than in a gym. If what you actually need is clinic equipment or a rehabilitation gym, Reef will tell you that on the first phone call rather than take the booking.
Reef is registered with the major insurers through his clinic work. Reeflex is in the middle of setting up its own billing accounts with them, which is not finished yet, so at the moment home visits are paid for directly. This is changing, so it is worth asking when you ring.
Reeflex travels out from South Woodham Ferrers and covers Essex, and further afield when the diary allows. Chelmsford, Maldon, Danbury, Billericay, Wickford, Rayleigh, Basildon, Southend, Brentwood, Braintree and Colchester are all regular. If you are not sure, ring and ask.
Get in touch
The first phone call is free and there is no obligation afterwards. Tell Reef what operation you have had and what you were told on discharge, and he will tell you honestly whether he can help. Reeflex covers Chelmsford, Maldon, Billericay, Wickford, Southend, Colchester and the rest of Essex.
