The spine journal : official journal of the North American Spine Society
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Randomized Controlled Trial
PREPARE: presurgery physiotherapy for patients with degenerative lumbar spine disorder: a randomized controlled trial.
Surgery because of disc herniation or spinal stenosis results mostly in large improvement in the short-term, but mild to moderate improvements for pain and disability at long-term follow-up. Prehabilitation has been defined as augmenting functional capacity before surgery, which may have beneficial effect on outcome after surgery. ⋯ Presurgery physiotherapy decreases pain, risk of avoidance behavior, and worsening of psychological well-being, and improves quality of life and physical activity levels before surgery compared with waiting-list controls. These results were maintained only for activity levelspost surgery. Still, presurgery selection, content, dosage of exercises, and importance of being active in a presurgery physiotherapy intervention is of interest to study further to improve long-term outcome.