Our results showed that among postoperative leg rehabilitative exercises assessed in our study, the regularity of the straight-leg raises for the experimental group was signifi- cantly better than that of the control group, and the muscle power of the affected leg in the experimental group was significantly greater than that of the control group. However, no significant differences were observed between the two groups for ankle pumping, quadriceps setting or knee flexion/extension exercises. Straight-leg raises are vital for rehabilitation after TKR surgery because they improve patients’ recovery of muscle strength in the lower limbs, enabling them to get out of bed and ambulate. These find- ings were similar to previous studies (Wong & Wong 1985, Lin et al. 1997). Preoperative education was proposed to enhance the regularity of exercise (including quadriceps set- ting, straight-leg raising, and knee flexion and extension) performance for TKR (Lin et al. 1997) and THR patients (Wong & Wong 1985).