VIDEO: Lifestyle medicine program improves musculoskeletal surgical outcomes

ORLANDO — Adhering to an intensive lifestyle medicine program before orthopedic surgery led to fewer postoperative outcomes and less pain in patients, according to a study.

In this video interview, Heidi Prather, DO, attending physiatrist at the Hospital for Special Surgery and professor of clinical rehabilitation medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, described her team’s research comparing outcomes like length of stay, the need for intensive care, readmissions, infections and persistent pain in patients who followed an intensive lifestyle medicine program before surgery and those who were given basic information about lifestyle changes but were not enrolled in the program.

Prather presented her proof-of-concept study in a poster at the American College of Lifestyle Medicine meeting.

All post-surgical outcomes, especially persistent pain, were found to be better in those who participated in the intensive program, which utilized the six pillars of health.

“If persistent pain is better in the first 90 days after surgery, a patient’s function and likelihood of a long-term outcome is higher,” Prather said. “Lifestyle medicine does work as an optimization program for patients with musculoskeletal disorders.”

Future studies will aim to elaborate on these data, evaluating long-term outcomes in patients undergoing specific surgeries.