Broken Legs and Ankles Heal Better If You Walk on Them within Weeks

Using crutches for months is largely a thing of the past. Early weight-bearing has real benefits

By Lydia Denworth edited by Josh Fischman

Twenty years ago my husband, Mark, broke his left ankle and was in a cast and on crutches for nearly two months. Last year he broke the other ankle. But this time, after surgery, his doctor surprised us by instructing Mark to walk on it two weeks later.

It turns out the standard advice to stay off a broken leg bone for at least six weeks is based less on scientific evidence and more on cultural caution—physicians like to play it safe. But now studies show that complications are no more likely with early weight-bearing than with a long delay. Except in a few complex cases, walking around earlier helps broken bones heal, and it improves quality of life: for example, people can return to work and other activities faster.

If you are fully immobilized, “you come out of the cast with a sort of hairy, withered leg that takes forever to overcome,” says orthopedic trauma surgeon Alex Trompeter of St. George’s University of London. “The science tells us that the rate at which you lose muscle mass is far faster than the rate at which you gain it.” You’re slow to build bone, too. Consider astronauts. After six months in zero gravity at the International Space Station, they lose 10 percent of their bone density, and to ward off that loss they do exercises in space that are equivalent to bearing weight.

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