The Role of Pre-Surgery Physical Therapy in Improving Post-Operative Outcomes

Physical therapists will assess your needs and create an individualized prehabilitation plan tailored specifically for you, usually including muscle strengthening exercises, cardiovascular conditioning training and range-of-motion activities to promote overall wellness.

Manual therapy techniques such as soft tissue manipulation, joint mobilization, and myofascial release may also be employed in order to reduce pain and swelling while aiding healing.

Pre-Surgery Physical Therapy Increases Post-Operative Outcomes

Pre-surgery physical therapy is an invaluable asset that helps patients recover faster and reduce the risk of complications after surgery. Prehabilitation aims to enhance physical fitness and quality of life before surgery so patients have shorter hospital stays and return home sooner.

Under this program, a physical therapist will evaluate your strength, flexibility, and mobility to identify any limitations before surgery. After conducting their assessment, your physical therapist will develop an individualized plan tailored specifically to address the needs of each client prior to going under anesthesia.

Studies comparing pre-surgery physical therapy to control groups found that those participating were able to meet physical therapy discharge criteria by the first day post surgery (p = 0.041). This improvement continued through to postoperative day 90; functional measures like timed up and go and 6MWT improved less than grip strength or SPPB did, however. Other gains included deficit accumulation frailty reduction, pain management, physical function gains, respiratory muscle function improvements and increases in health-related quality of life.

Pre-Surgery Physical Therapy Reduces Pain

Undergoing any procedure, however minor, can be immensely stressful on your body. Like running a 5K race, being better prepared ahead of time makes the experience simpler and quicker to overcome.

Pre-surgery physical therapy is one way you can help prepare your body for surgery. It enables you to increase muscle mass and physical stamina, increasing tolerance of surgical stress while decreasing recovery times.

Strengthening muscles around a surgical site helps alleviate post-surgery discomfort and swelling while speeding the healing process.

Your physical therapist can teach you safe transfer techniques into and out of bed and assistive devices. They may also help rethink your home environment to plan how you will navigate stairs (or other steps) during recovery; this retraining ensures no accidents happen while recovering; they will also work to safely increase strength and endurance prior to surgery so as not to overdo it.

Pre-Surgery Physical Therapy Reduces Complications

Before surgery, participating in physical therapy (PT) can help minimize complications that could arise during or after your procedure. This process is commonly known as prehabilitation and its benefits can be substantial.

Physical therapy (PT) helps to increase overall strength and fitness while increasing tissue health to foster healing. Furthermore, PT helps decrease scar tissue formation which may cause pain or limit movement, leading to improved outcomes with faster recover times.

Physical therapy (PT) also offers many other advantages to its patients, including informing them what to expect during and after surgery and providing tools needed to manage recovery. This can reduce anxiety and stress over surgery while cutting post-op care expenses down significantly – saving both money and services needed post op. Additionally, its educational component encourages healthy eating habits prior to an operation in order to boost immunity, potentially decreasing risks such as infection after the procedure and complications following it.

Pre-Surgery Physical Therapy Improves Post-Operative Outcomes

Patients who begin physical therapy prior to surgery have greater strength and endurance, leading to faster recovery after the procedure. Physical therapy also helps prevent muscle atrophy while speeding healing by increasing blood circulation – both of which contribute to shorter rehabilitation stays for athletes or people eager to return to regular activities quickly after surgery.

Recently, patients were randomly assigned either presurgery physical therapy (PT) or no PT (control group). PT participants underwent five weekly sessions of strengthening stretches and exercises leading up to surgery; control group received information regarding postoperative rehabilitation; both groups were evaluated at baseline, day of surgery, and 90 days post surgery – the results showed that those participating in presurgery PT programs significantly improved WOMAC pain, stiffness, function subscores as well as total score compared with controls.

Additionally, those receiving presurgery PT were less likely to require hospital stays of more than 48 hours after surgery. Presurgery PT also decreased the likelihood of being placed on mechanical ventilation longer than 48 hours post surgery.