News Health & Medicine

Personalized ‘prehabilitation’ helps the body brace for major surgery

Tailored exercise, nutrition and cognitive training appear to tune immune activity

A patient smiles while resting in a hospital bed.

Preparing the body for surgery can improve outcomes after the operation. New research suggests that individualized “prehabilitation” could work even better.

Maskot/Getty Images

By Anna Gibbs

Major surgery takes a major toll on the body — not unlike running a marathon. You wouldn’t attempt a marathon without training, so why would you undergo major surgery without preparing your body for the trauma it will experience?

That’s the premise of prehabilitation, which prepares the body through exercise, nutrition and cognitive training to better withstand surgical trauma.