Prehab-Proactive Rehab
Everyday at Proactive Chiropractic, I work to help my patients with chronic conditions like osteoarthritis. I am able to reduce pain and improve range of motion in the vast majority of my patients. However, in some cases, the patient needs more than what my manual therapy can offer and the patient requires surgical intervention. The most common surgeries that my patients require are hip & knee replacements and spinal nerve decompression via discectomy.
Surgery is daunting for most of my patients. While excited about the potential results, they tell me they are worried about how long their hospital stay will be, their independence and what the recovery process will look like. This is a completely understandable perspective and easy to empathize with. I can also give my patients concrete pre-surgery advice and hope based on recent systematic review published in the BMJ.
Prehabilatition- or prehab is the process of getting the body ready for a surgery so it is better able to handle the procedure. It is a multimodal intervention that involves a program of exercise, nutritional advice and psychosocial support aimed at helping the patient recover more quickly. Specifically for an upcoming hip replacement, advice would centre around leg strengthening and flexibility as well as increased protein consumption and cognitive/psychological support to understand patient apprehensions, support network and needs. The study showed a prehab program reduced surgical complications by 40-50%, decreased length of stay in hospital as well as showed improvements in physical independence and other quality of life metrics in participants.
Depending on your condition and the procedure you have planned, prehabilatition may be something I can advise and guide you on. It may be something you need to seek specific advice from your surgical team. Regardless doing as much as you can for yourself to help you through the surgical process is something all can participate in and benefit from!
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