Nutritional Status Affects Spine Healing

Nutritional status denotes your health status. Factors like serum levels, weight and other issues rate nutritional status. “ABCD” are factors considered – Anthropomorphic status (weight/body), Biochemical (blood tests), Clinical (how well the body functions work as checked by a physician) and Dietary (what you eat). Soft Health and Healing Clinic can deduce lots about the nutritional status of a Brooks chiropractic patient during the first clinical Brooks chiropractic examination and establish a treatment plan to deal with any nutritional concerns that are uncovered particularly in patients who may be at risk for a back surgery or any other surgical intervention for that matter. A good pre-surgical nutritional status will assist Brooks post-surgical healing and decrease Brooks post-back surgical problems.Good status also helps healing with non-surgical care!

One test that is a good indicator of your Brooks nutritional status is the serum albumin concentration. Researchers talk about how nutritional status influences postsurgical outcomes and healing. Specifically, hypoalbumin levels – low levels under 3.5 g/dL – demonstrate a malnourished state and are indicative of post-surgical recovery complication rates, particularly for patients who undergo anterior cervical discectomy and fusion. Patients who have low albumin concentrations before surgery had higher rates of experiencing any major postoperative complication(s) like pulmonary, cardiac and reoperation as well as longer stays in the hospital. (1) In one study, 28% of patients were found to be malnourished and more likely to have a postoperative complication and a longer hospital stay (8.67 days instead of 3.8 days). 14.48% of these spine surgery patients were re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge. Malnourished patients’ re-admission rate (27.5%) was three times that of nourished patients (9.52%). Post-surgical readmission rates can be affected by pre-operative nutritional status, an issue that a patient can deal with before the surgery. (2) Soft Health and Healing Clinic can coordinate a Brooks blood test to check your levels. Soft Health and Healing Clinic considers statistics like this and appreciates how important nutrition is for our Brooks chiropractic patients’ health and healing as well as their spine care. Soft Health and Healing Clinic is prepared to help improve your nutritional status for optimal healing preoperatively, postoperatively and back surgery-preventatively!

Lastly, in a study of spine surgery patients in an orthopedic hospital, nutritional status was obtained when they were admitted and discharged via the Nutritional Risk Score 2002. It was found that nutritional status – nutritional risk, malnutrition, overweight and obesity – and nutritional support at the hospital after surgery play significant roles in patient recovery. 88% of patients who were nutritionally at-risk received nutritional support while staying in the hospital. These nutritional status factors changed: nutritional risk increased from 11.6% to 19.4%; malnutrition status increased from 12.7% to 20.6%; overweight status decreased from 35.9% to 31.0%; and obesity status reduced from 7.41% to 5.79%. Bottomline: the incidence of nutritional risk and malnutrition increased significantly. That is not very good! (3) While these stats did not place the hospital care in a good light, they did put the hospital on notice to be more cognizant and ready to help these patients who present with a known risk before surgery. Soft Health and Healing Clinic searches for ways to preempt Brooks health issues by checking for them early on!

Soft Health and Healing Clinic looks to help Brooks back pain patients avoid back surgery if possible, and Soft Health and Healing Clinic is also effective at helping our back pain patients attain good nutritional and physical shape pre- and post-surgically as needed. Soft Health and Healing Clinic is poised to cooperate with Brooks back pain patients who intend to get themselves into better shape and keep surgery at bay whenever feasible. It is not always a simple path to a healthy nutritional status, but it’s a worthy one for your physical body’s health and future healing if surgery is called for as well as when a non-surgical healing approach is used.

Rely on Soft Health and Healing Clinic, your back pain specialty practice, to be your Brooks nutritional status guide.