BMJ Medicine · Published 2026-06-01 · DOI 10.1136/bmjmed-2025-001969
Daniel I. McIsaac, Leandra Amado, Gurlavine Kidd, Christopher Wanczycki, Ianthe Boden, Emily Hladkowicz, Chelsia Gillis
Prehabilitation transforms the preoperative waiting period into an opportunity for patients to actively improve their health before surgery. With surgical populations ageing and presenting with increasing frailty, patient prioritised outcomes, such as postoperative complications and disability, affect >20% of patients undergoing major surgery, resulting in substantial healthcare costs. This review combines the current evidence for prehabilitation components, including exercise, and respiratory, nutritional, cognitive, and psychosocial interventions. Although respiratory prehabilitation showed high certainty evidence for reducing postoperative pulmonary complications after major surgery, other components showed promising but lower certainty benefits. Multimodal prehabilitation, especially when exercise and nutrition are combined, seems to be most effective for improving clinical and patient centred outcomes. Significant knowledge gaps remain, however, about optimal programme design, delivery models, target populations, and strategies to maximise adherence. Patient perspectives emphasise the importance of individualised coaching or support from healthcare professionals, or both, home based accessibility, and collaborative care. Future research should include a focus on pragmatic multicentre trials with robust cost effectiveness analyses to support implementation in the health system of effective, scalable prehabilitation programmes that can meaningfully improve outcomes for surgical patients. Opportunities to enhance the effectiveness and reach of prehabilitation include exploiting existing and emerging technologies, as well as optimising participant support to maximise adherence.
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McIsaac, D., Amado, L., Kidd, G., et al. (2026). Prehabilitation in preparation for surgery. BMJ Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjmed-2025-001969