Post-Operative Physical Therapy
In the absence of reliable evidence, it is the opinion of the work group that patients who have received surgical treatment of OCD be offered post-operative physical therapy.

Rationale
Patients who receive surgical interventions for OCD of the knee may experience impairments such as loss of motion, strength deficits, altered movement patterns, and post-operative effusion. Although we could not locate any rigorously collected evidence about how common these impairments are, or their degree of severity, the work group deemed that it was imprudent to ignore them.

In making this consensus recommendation, the work group is issuing a recommendation consistent with current practice. However, the work group also acknowledges the paucity of evidence on the effectiveness of physical therapy, including its effects on either the duration or severity of these impairments (none of the eight studies included in this guideline that reported that their patients received post-operative physical therapy.42, 44-46, 51, 52, 56, 57 evaluated the effects of that therapy), or whether supervised therapy and unsupervised therapy yield different outcomes. Accordingly, it is not possible to determine whether patients should be offered supervised or unsupervised therapy.

The work group also notes that there are minimal risks associated with physical therapy, which, given its potential benefits, also argues for offering it to patients. These patients should be offered sufficient information to allow them to choose between supervised and unsupervised therapy, given their own, unique circumstances.