CONTEXT: Inpatient rehabilitation after elective hip and knee arthroplasty is often necessary for patients who cannot function at home soon after surgery, but how soon after surgery inpatient rehabilitation can be initiated has not been studied. OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that high-risk patients undergoing elective hip and knee arthroplasty would incur less total cost and experience more rapid functional improvement if inpatient rehabilitation began on postoperative day 3 rather than day 7, without adverse consequences to the patients. DESIGN: Randomized controlled trial conducted from 1994 to 1996. SETTING: Tertiary care center. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 86 patients undergoing elective hip or knee arthroplasty and who met the following criteria for being high risk: 70 years of age or older and living alone, 70 years of age or older with 2 or more comorbid conditions, or any age with 3 or more comorbid conditions. Of the 86 patients, 71 completed the study. INTERVENTIONS: Random assignment to begin inpatient rehabilitation on postoperative day 3 versus postoperative day 7. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Total length of stay and cost from orthopedic and rehabilitation hospital admissions, functional performance in hospitals using a subset of the functional independence measure, and 4-month follow-up assessment using the RAND 36-item health survey I and the functional status index. RESULTS: Patients who completed the study and began inpatient rehabilitation on postoperative day 3 exhibited shorter mean (+/- SD) total length of stay (11.7 +/- 2.3 days versus 14.5 +/- 1.9, p < 0.001), lower mean (+/- SD) total cost ($25891 +/- $3648 versus $27762 +/- $3626, p < 0.03), more rapid attainment of short-term functional milestones between days 6 and 10 (36.2 +/- 14.4 m ambulated versus 21.4 +/- 13.3 m, p < 0.001; 4.8 +/- 0.8 mean transfer functional independence measure score versus 4.3 +/- 0.7, p < 0.01), and equivalent functional outcome at 4-month follow-up. CONCLUSION: These data showed that high-risk individuals were able to tolerate early intensive rehabilitation, and this intervention yielded faster attainment of short-term functional milestones in fewer days using less total cost.

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