What is Digital Prehabilitation?
Digital prehabilitation is an innovative approach to patient preparation for surgery or major medical treatments, leveraging digital technologies such as mobile apps, online platforms, wearables, and telemedicine to deliver personalized programs aimed at optimizing physical, psychological, and nutritional health. It builds on the concept of traditional prehabilitation, which involves using the waiting period before procedures to enhance functional capacity and resilience, but incorporates remote, tech-enabled delivery for greater accessibility. This method is particularly useful for home-based or community settings, allowing patients to engage in multimodal interventions—like exercise routines, dietary guidance, and mental health support—without frequent in-person visits. Often targeted at high-risk groups, such as those undergoing cancer surgery, it uses elements like AI-driven personalization and virtual monitoring to make prehab scalable and efficient.
Advantages of Digital Prehabilitation
Digital prehabilitation offers several key benefits over traditional methods, making it a growing trend in perioperative care:
- Improved Accessibility and Convenience: By enabling home-based programs, it allows patients to participate remotely, reducing the need for travel and accommodating those in rural or underserved areas, with high acceptability reported in studies.
- Cost-Effectiveness: It provides individualized care at a fraction of the cost of in-person sessions, helping to address healthcare resource shortages while maintaining patient safety and quality.
- Personalization and Better Outcomes: Digital tools allow for tailored programs that adapt to individual needs, leading to enhanced functional capacity, reduced surgical complications, shorter hospital stays, and improved treatment success rates.
- Enhanced Patient Engagement and Monitoring: Features like progress tracking, stress reduction tools, and real-time feedback via apps promote adherence and empower patients, contributing to better quality of life and recovery.
- Scalability for Broader Applications: It’s feasible for various procedures, including major cancer surgeries, and can be integrated into healthcare systems to optimize resources amid staffing challenges.
Overall, these advantages position digital prehabilitation as a transformative solution in modern healthcare, with ongoing research supporting its feasibility and impact.
Sources:
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1479666X23000604
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