What is prehabilitation, or prehab? It refers to the process of preparing for a surgery by exercising and eating a nutritious diet to improve surgical outcomes.
According to a Canadian study published in _The BMJ_, prehabilitation is associated with fewer complications, shorter hospital stays and improved recovery and quality of life. Researchers analysed data from 186 trials involving 15,684 participants (average age 62; 45 per cent women) preparing for major surgery who received prehabilitation interventions or usual care.
The study examined various prehab strategies, including exercise, nutritional enhancement, psychological support and cognitive training, and also combinations of these, with interventions lasting seven or more days before surgery. After accounting for factors like surgery type, the study found that exercise was associated with a 50 per cent reduced risk of complications and a healthy diet with a 38 per cent reduced risk, compared with usual care. Combining diet, exercise and psychosocial support reduced the risk of complications by 36 per cent. Exercise and psychosocial support reduced patients’ hospital stay by more than two days, while exercise and diet cut hospital stay by more than a day.
The combination of exercise, nutrition and psychosocial prehabilitation was most likely to improve quality of life and physical recovery. Individually, exercise and nutrition were most likely to enhance all key outcomes.