(introductory music)
- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together, we are the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion.
Today we're going to show you how
someone who's had a total knee replacement,
or I guess, if you had a total hip replacement,
- Sure.
- It's the same thing.
I mean, it's not the same thing
but it's the same way.
We're gonna demonstrate to you
how to get up and down stairs.
- Right, very critical part.
Most people have at least one or two steps to get
into their house or something the, you know,
when they're gonna be leaving the hospital,
they need to know how to do it.
Almost all weight, all weight bearing
on total hips and total knees are weight bearing.
- [Both] That's tolerating.
- Which means you can put on
as much as you can tolerate.
If you're not weight bearing,
I don't know if I wanna show you that.
- Right, I think that's something
for your therapist to show you.
- Right.
This is now, you can see I got one leg,
pant leg, pulled up here.
It's just not to show off my incredible gas drive,
but what that is is just say this represents
the knee that was replaced or the hip
that was replaced on my left leg, okay?
Should we start going down the steps?
- Yeah, I wanna go down the steps
versus you've got your knee replaced.
- So if you're using the crutch,
you can use a cane too, it really doesn't matter.
Or if you got two rails, a lot of times
I'll go 'head and just have people put their hands
across on each rail if they're close enough in.
If they're too far out not good.
- [Bob] So you're gonna need a crutch
or you're gonna need a rail or a cane.
- Right.
- Crutch or a cane.
- Right, so, the rule is good leg up, bad leg down.
What's that's saying is when you move
going up the steps, the good leg leads.
When you're going down the steps
the other leg leads, the bad leg
or the one they had to replace.
Okay, So I'm going down the steps here.
- [Bob] Brad, Brad, you didn't do the heaven and hell thing.
When you're going up to heaven, you lead with the good leg
and when you're going down to hell...
- Good leg goes to heaven, bad leg goes to hell.
- Yeah. Okay.
- I used to work at Saint Francis
and I couldn't say those words.
- [Bob] Gotcha, I gotcha.
- Okay. So here we go.
- And here again,
- [Brad] bring this leg out in front and well,
and we're gonna go down with the down the bad, right?
- [Bob] Down with the bad, you're doing it right.
- [Brad] Yeah. Down here and one step at a time.
- [Bob] But the crutch is always on the lowest level.
- [Brad] Yeah, always lead with the crutch
and get this hand out in front of you a little bit,
so you're not back like this
and then you end up leaning backwards.
Lean slightly forward, this cane or crutch must lead
and then you go down with the bad one.
Down with the bad, down with the bad, just remember that.
- [Bob] Think like, Brad, take another step once.
Come on up and take another step.
- [Brad] All right.
- [Bob] Go ahead, take the step.
- [Brad] Yep.
- [Bob] See, he's putting all the weight on the good leg.
That's what's happening there.
There's hardly any weight on the bad, or involved leg.
- [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] And that's why you do it in this manner.
- [Brad] Right, the strong leg holds
the body weight going down.
If you tried this with a total knee replacement,
- [Bob] Oh, it would hurt.
- [Brad] It hurts.
It will hurt and 'cause I've seen it many times
- [Brad] and I'm right there to help him out
and say correct it because their eyes get up that big
and say "Ow!" and that really teaches you.
In a quick hurry and go down with the bad leg first.
- [Bob] So why don't we reverse it, Brad,
we'll show go on the opposite.
- [Brad] Okay. So,
- You wanna cut, Nancy, or do you wanna show...?
- [Brad] Okay, now with that total knee replacement
total hip on the left side.
We're gonna go up the stairs
and what is it again, Bob?
- Up to heaven (inaudible).
If you're going up, you wanna lead with the good leg
and when you going down, you wanna lead with the bad leg
or the involved leg, so lead with the good leg.
- [Brad] Okay, so, here's my good leg
with the pant leg all the way down.
We're gonna go up with that one first.
Now, in this case, if you have a crutch or a cane,
keep it down low.
- [Bob] It's always on the lowest level,
whether you're going up or you're going down,
it's always on the lower step.
- [Brad] In other words, don't try this
and go up to it. It's hard.
You can see my shoulder goes up.
Better to keep it down here.
Good hand on the handrail,
make sure you got a solid handrail.
And I'll quickly go ahead to step two.
If you try this and you won't be able do this easy anyways,
but with you're knee, you're gonna come like this
and as soon as you put weight on there
it's let you know real quick
that it's gonna be weak and painful.
So that's what we're here to do.
A step two procedures up to here and like this.
Follow, up with the good,
- [Brad] up with the good, very easy.
- [Bob] Rest is always on the good leg.
- [Brad] Yes. Strong leg, it's lifting your body weight up,
and you just follow through with the involved leg.
Works all very well.
Take your time with it.
Once you do it once or twice, it all falls into place.
Should be no problem.
- I don't like you using that word "falls".
- Yeah, there are four or five other words, I guess.
Watch my mouth.
- Well, no, I just don't want anyone falling
when they're doing this.
- Well, of course not.
- All right, that should do it.