Effect of Prehabilitation in Older Adults Undergoing Total Joint Replacement: an Overview of Systematic Reviews

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To review and discuss the findings of systematic reviews that synthesized the evidence on the effect of preoperative exercises (prehabilitation) on postoperative functional recovery in older adults undergoing total knee or hip joint replacement. RECENT FINDINGS: Ten systematic reviews (8 meta-analyses) were included in this review. Findings from the systematic reviews indicated that prehabilitation decreases length of hospital stay but does not improve postoperative functional recovery in older adults undergoing joint replacement. Individual studies in the systematic reviews varied considerably in prehabilitation protocol, assessment timepoints, and outcome measures. Most importantly, systematic reviews did not assess the outcomes pre-post prehabilitation as this timepoint was not addressed in most individual studies. Therefore, it is not known whether the prehabilitation programs improved outcomes preoperatively. SUMMARY: There is a need to develop comprehensive prehabilitation protocols and systematically assess the preoperative and postoperative effectiveness of prehabilitation protocols on functional outcomes (i.e., self-reported and performance-based) in older adults undergoing total joint replacement.