Preparation
is the best medicine.
No athlete takes to the field unprepared. So why should patients? Prehabilitation is the targeted process of building strength before surgery – and it makes a measurable difference.
What your body goes through before surgery or treatment – and how to prepare it.
Experienced surgeons often compare surgery to the physical stress of running a marathon – except without any training. Prehabilitation is exactly that missing training: a targeted, individualised preparation of body and mind in the weeks leading up to the procedure. The goal is to build sufficient physical reserves so that you can better withstand the demands of surgery and get back on your feet more quickly afterwards.1 2
Surgery places three types of stress on the body – all at once:
✓ Physical stress from the procedure itself – your body is required to perform under conditions it has rarely, if ever, trained for.
✓ Chemical stress from anaesthesia, medication, or chemotherapy.
✓ Mental stress from fear, uncertainty, and a loss of control – often underestimated, but real and measurable.
All of these stress factors slow recovery and increase the risk of complications. Yet the solution has long been known: Preparation.
Elite athletes spend months preparing their bodies for peak performance. Patients, by contrast, are often sent completely unprepared into what may be the most physically demanding experience of their lives.
How prehabilitation transforms your recovery.
Every surgery causes a temporary drop in physical function – that is entirely normal. What matters is the level you are starting from when that drop occurs. Patients who have built up physical reserves before surgery do not fall into a critical zone. The difference: a faster recovery, fewer complications, and an earlier discharge.3 4 5
Prehabilitation raises your baseline – so that the inevitable dip does not knock you off course.
For high-risk patients in particular, longer waiting periods can lead to a significant loss of strength and physical reserves. When these reserves are depleted before the procedure even begins, the road to recovery becomes unnecessarily long. Our targeted prehabilitation programme prepares your body as thoroughly as possible. We help you preserve your fitness level, reduce the risk of complications, and noticeably shorten your recovery time. Become the driving force behind your own healing.
Prehabilitation has a positive impact on preoperative physical performance, which helps prevent a decline into the critical zone. As a result, prehabilitation patients have a much stronger foundation for a faster recovery, despite the potential negative side effects of a surgical procedure. By avoiding the critical performance zone, patients are able to manage their daily lives independently. This leads to a reduction in complications, improved postoperative outcomes, and further lowers the risk of postoperative delirium.
Footnote:
1 Punt et al, 2017; 2 Singh et al, 2019; 3 Gentry et al, 2020; 4 Sánchez-Iglesias et al, 2020; 5 Minnella et al, 2021