Prehabilitation

Abstract

Objective: The main purpose of this article was to provide available information’s about concept of pre-habilitation aiming on its effectiveness and benefits it provides to oncological patients. Design: Review. Setting: Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and General University Hospital in Prague. Methods: We performed a research of available literature from 1998 to the present using PubMed database, focusing on keywords. We aimed on analysis of the results from prospective studies. Results: Prehabilitation refers to interventions aiming on increasing resilience and functional capacity before well-known stress event (surgical performance). The mainstay of prehabilitation is physiotherapy combined with nutritional or psychological support. A positive effect of combined preoperative intervention was demonstrated. Prehabilitation increases the patient‘s functional capacity, reduces the number of perioperative and postoperative complications and shortens hospital length of stay. It also improves adherence of cancer patients to treatment, reduces anxiety or depression and reduces overall stress levels. Conclusion: Prehabilitation may significantly improve quality of life. Moreover, it reduces costs of oncological treatment.