What is the recovery time for surgery to put plate and screws for lower leg frac!

What is the recovery time for surgery to put plate and screws for lower leg fracture?

My sister has a 'radial fracture' in one of her lower leg bones. Basically there were hairline fractures from a jump and they spiderwebbed across the bone. The doctor isn't sure it will heal properly and strongly with just a cast. He put her in a cast and will x-ray it again in a week to see how the healing progresses. If it isn't sufficient then he says he will do surgery to put in a plate and screws. If he just leaves the cast, she will only have it 6 weeks. If she has to have the surgery, how much longer than that could she be off work? She's an LPN doing home health care. Would she have to have physical therapy that could prolong her return to work even longer?

4 weeks ago
The fracture is about 3 inches above her ankle and I'm not sure which lower bone it is in. She is obese, abt 325lbs.

Tibia or fibula fracture? Where is the fracture? These questions have signficant impact on her recovery. Fractures of the fibula rarely result in signficant impairment...the fibula is a non weight bearing bone. On the other hand, fractures of the tibia are usually much more signficant. Location of the fracture is also important. Fractures of the middle third of the tibia and/or tibia and fibula are noctorious for either poor healing or failing to heal at all. This is because the blood supply to this area of bone is very poor. Fractures in this region very frequently need internal and/or external fixation (plates, screws, and sometimes an external device which is later removed). Rate of healing in all these cases is quite vaiable...I've seen people start to regain the ability to put weight on it as early as eight weeks and resume work 1-2 months after that (for those with jobs that require a lot of standing)...but then I've also seen cases where a person remained non-weight bearing for 11 months and took 14 months for maximum recovery (although he was also diabetic and weighed 250#).

So to say the very least, it is extremely variable and the surgeon would be the best person to answer this question.