Using pre-rehabilitation on a telehealth platform led to significantly shorter length of stays for total knee arthroplasty patients, according to a study in Annals of Translational Medicine.
The study featured a total of 476 consecutive patients who underwent TKA at three institutions. A total of 114 patients used the novel pre-rehabilitation program that provided exercises, nutritional guidance, home safety and medical risk reduction education and pain management skills preoperatively.
The average length of stay in the pre-rehabilitation group — two days — was significantly shorter than in the control group — 2.7 days. While 42.8 percent of control group patients went home without assistance, 77.2 percent of pre-rehabilitation patients went home without assistance.
Significantly fewer patients in the pre-rehabilitation group were discharged to a skilled nursing facility when compared to the control group — 1.8 percent versus 21.8 percent, respectively.