Think About Pre-Hab Before Re-Hab

August 26, 2017 – Bronx, NY – If you are considering musculoskeletal surgery, you should talk to your doctor about Pre-Hab. Pre-Hab is a pro-active approach, that leads you through targeted physical therapy prior to an elective surgical procedure. “What’s the point?” you may wonder. Pre-Hab is essentially meant to optimize your body for the surgical procedure so the subsequent rehab will have a better outcome.  Essentially, prepping now for the later.

Benefits of Pre-Hab

Improve Proprioception: your joints ability to signal your brain about its position. This is key to efficient movement. Loss of proprioception is often seen to be a factor and poses risk of getting injured. In addition to underlying injury, the “trauma” of surgery can also lead to loss of proprioception. Your therapist can teach you techniques to enhance and integrate your proprioceptive input prior to the surgery.

Feed Forward Training: Due to injury, pain and immobilization, the body’s ability to anticipate and prepare for movement is often in disarray following surgery. Pre-Hab will include targeted exercises that will focus on improving feed-forward mechanisms of movement.

Muscle Guarding: a common outcome of any surgery. It is a natural way of protection to avoid pain but it is not efficient as it gets in the way of normal movement. Pre-Hab will show patients how to move their muscles towards stability and to prevent guarding.

Total Body Screening: Even though injuries may occur in isolation they can have an impact in other parts of the body. For example, impairments in ankle are often associated with weakness and mobility issues up in the hip region. During Pre-Hab your therapist can screen and identify these issues so they can be addressed. This leads to better outcome.

This is also an excellent way to establish rapport with your therapist. Having an open comfortable line of communication is key for overall positive outcome with rehab. Your therapist should also help alleviate your fears and help you mentally and physically prepare for the surgery.

The team at New York Spine and Sport is the Bronx’s leader in pain management, spine pain, sports injuries, and joint pain rehabilitation.  We hope to have the pleasure of being able to help you through your next musculoskeletal procedure, with Pre-Hab being part of that roadmap back to pain-free living.