The role of Perioperative Surgical Home on health and longevity in society: importance of the surgical prehabilitation program

Excerpt

Regardless of recent advances in surgical techniques, improvements in perioperative management remain crucial to avoid postoperative functional disability and complications, especially in an increasingly aged population. The development of perioperative complications associated with prolonged hospitalization and reduced functional capacity after major surgery may affect a patient’s ability to return to daily living without any dependence. Therefore, in order to accomplish health and longevity in society, perioperative management is an important issue that needs to be resolved. A number of approaches to provide better postoperative recovery and outcome, including preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative strategies, have been applied by multidisciplinary teams [1‐4]. A recent model called ‘Perioperative Surgical Home’ (PSH) has been established which enables surgical patients to be consulted from the time when the surgeon decides to operate and provides preoperative intervention during the waiting time for surgery. In this review, we focus on preoperative management to improve functional capacity, termed ‘prehabilitation’, as a recent approach for surgical patients [5, 6]. …