The importance of pre-surgery exercise: “Prehabilitation”
The surgeons at Banff Sport Medicine recommend an exercise program or ‘pre-habilitation’ (prehab) prior to surgery.
Research shows that regaining the strength and movement in your injured limb before surgery will improve your recovery.
The stronger your muscles are before surgery, the faster you will recover post-operatively
Muscles play a very important role in stabilization and they react to the amount of stress placed on them.
With a decreased amount of stress (e.g. immobilization, instability, decreased weight-bearing), the muscles weaken and atrophy (waste away).
For this reason, prehab exercises are extremely important to prepare patients for surgery.
Prehab exercise programs have several important benefits:
- Return range of motion to normal and decrease the risk of post-operative stiffness
- Increase muscle strength in your injured limb and core
- Improve balance
- Maintain fitness in preparation for surgery
- Decrease the time to full recovery after surgery
- Decrease the risk of post-operative complications such as deep vein thrombosis
Visit the Banff Sport Medicine clinic website to view and download Pre-Surgery Exercise Programs for a number of knee surgeries.
