Why get fit for surgery?
The evidence for 'being your best you' before surgery is vast with many organisations recommending that:
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Medical diseases are optimised
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You undertake regular physical exercise
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With nutritional and psychological support.
This directly impacts the outcomes of your surgery and can benefit everyone in every age group, studies suggest up to a 50% reduction in postoperative complications, reduced readmission rates and maintained lifestyle changes (See EJA article here).
Whether for you, this is translated into a reduced length of stay or complications such as infections, blood clots or heart or respiratory problems. Your journey will be smoother if you are optimised before you start.
NICE recognises your length of stay will be reduced for hip and knee surgery by taking part in a prehabilitation programme, agreeing that 6 weeks before surgery is the optimum time frame. A member of the committee related this length of stay improvement to improved wellbeing by earlier discharge home. The recommended best practice is individualised treatment for every patient. (NICE guidance in full)
Being as fit as possible is also recommended by the British heart foundation (see link) before Heart Surgery.
How to understand the stresses of surgery?
During patient discussions, we can compare the stresses of surgery to the stresses in everyday life to make it easier to understand the science. The aim is to reduce these surgical stresses and enable a quick, smooth recovery.
An easy way to make this comparison would be to use competitive athletic events. Depending on the scale of surgery it could be a walk, 5km run, triathlon or a marathon.
Thinking about how we approach these events in our lives, we would train for some weeks before competing in a 5km run, or months for a triathlon/marathon.
So, really you should get in shape for your surgery
How can we help?
Are you on the waiting list for an operation or just thinking you may need one?
We can help with both scenarios.
As a client of fitforsurgery we will ensure that your medical problems, pre-existing injuries and fitness levels are taken into account before you commence our packages of care. All our expert team members take personal pride in looking after you but will also help you to thrive in our programme of care.
Stay with us after your surgery for a wrap-around package of care by our experts. We will develop a bespoke rehabilitation programme just for you.