The opinions shared in the GymNation blog articles are solely those of the respective authors and may not represent the perspectives of GymNation or any member of the GymNation team.
7,500 Daily Steps Before Surgery and Complication Risks Plummet
SIGN UP FOR YOUR FREE DAY PASS TODAY!
The odds of complications within 90 days after hospital discharge ,were reduced by half if a patient was getting more than 7,500 steps a day before their procedure, the study found.
Post-surgical issues often manifest once a patient has been discharged and returned home, affecting roughly 30% of individuals. These complications can range from infections and blood clots to issues with the surgical wound.
“It likely reflects more on a person’s comprehensive health and fitness level,” noted Dr. Anai Kothari, a study co-author and assistant professor specializing in surgical oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. “We take into consideration numerous factors when evaluating surgical risks. I am optimistic that this can serve as an extra tool for practitioners in their decision-making process.”
Surgeons can already better understand a person’s risk by knowing they have certain health conditions, such as diabetes, Kothari said. Knowing how active that patient is could add information about their risks.
What do the results tell doctors?
"[The] first is we can actually use wearable devices to give us insight into a domain of their health and fitness that we may previously not have had an opportunity to do.
This can be a useful adjunct to thinking about surgical risk,” Kothari said. “The second is there’s likely something about the level of activity itself that plays into this. That still remains understudied.”
In the study, his team analyzed health data for 475 people who were participating in the All of Us Research program sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
The program is focused on the relationship between lifestyle, biology and environment in diverse populations.
Participants in the study used a Fitbit wristwatch device that measured their daily steps.
The number of daily steps recorded served as a proxy for physical activity.
The steps were recorded dating back as far as months or years before surgery. The surgeries these patients had ranged from general to orthopedic and neurosurgery.
The authors found that about 12.6% of study participants had a surgery complication. The odds of having a complication within the first 30 days were 45% less for those regular walkers than those who had fewer than 7,500 daily steps.
“Increased fitness is part of an overall healthy lifestyle and can improve postoperative risk and some of the things that we think about from a surgical standpoint, but longer term it’s a positive health activity so increasing physical activity is beneficial for multiple reasons,” Kothari said.
Patients may also learn more about their overall health through wearable devices, Kothari suggested, noting that some track a person’s sleep.
“I do think that having some objective information about overall fitness is helpful,” he said.
The findings were presented this week at the American College of Surgeons annual meeting, in Boston. Findings presented at medical meetings are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
“There is a well-recognized correlation between a patient’s physical condition prior to undergoing surgery and a reduced likelihood of experiencing postoperative complications,” stated Dr. Paul Toste, a thoracic surgeon affiliated with UCLA Health in Santa Monica, California.
That the researchers were able to use a simple, common marker of physical activity and correlate that with postoperative complications was interesting, Toste said.
“I think from this study, the main takeaway is that people who are in better shape before surgery have a lower risk for complications, so anything that you can do to improve your physical fitness before an upcoming planned surgery is beneficial,” Toste said.
And there are many reasons that fitter patients may fare better.
They may be able to get up and move around more quickly post-surgery, reducing the risk for blood clots. They may take deeper breaths when they’re up and moving, reducing the risk for pneumonia, Toste said. They may also start out with a better nutritional status, which is good for healing.
“Pre-habilitation” is a term that’s getting more notice, Toste said. The idea is to help patients get into better shape before an elective surgery, so they can have better outcomes.
WHATSAPP
EMAIL
SHARE VIA
