Gearing up for surgery can be a big and daunting step in your health care journey, but you don’t have to do it alone. We are sure you have heard of REhabilitation, but you may not have come across PREhabilitation. Prehabilitation is an equally crucial part of recovery and includes a comprehensive and proactive approach to your surgery. By seeing you BEFORE your surgery, your Physiotherapist is able to provide targeted exercises, tailored education specific to your procedure, and necessary hands-on therapy to ensure smooth sailing post-op!
Let’s talk benefits of Prehabilitation:
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- Ease of mind: There is a lot of information thrown at you prior to surgery, use your prehab time with your therapist to ask any and all questions that you have come across! It may be helpful to even brainstorm some questions with your therapist to ask your surgeon before the big day.
- Stronger before = Stronger after: You may not want to think about exercise prior to surgery, however, being more fit going into surgery has a direct impact on how smooth and effective recovery will be. Why not give yourself that head start?
- Optimized surgical outcomes: Prehab may decrease postoperative pain, decrease length of hospital stays, and reduce risk of complications.
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Which surgeries may benefit from Prehabilitation?
In short – all of them! Most often prehabilitation is targeted towards major orthopedic surgeries such as total knee replacements and total hip replacements. However, ligament ruptures (like ACL surgery), shoulder injuries (like rotator cuff tears) requiring surgery, and spine surgeries may benefit from prehab!
Posted by Reagan Niemeyer