Results of preoperative rehabilitation in geriatric patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty

Introduction: arthroplasty or hip joint replacement is a surgical procedure in which the affected or diseased part of the joint is totally or partially replaced by an artificial one called prosthesis. Objective: to evaluate the results of preoperative rehabilitation in geriatric patients who underwent total hip arthroplasty. Methos: a developmental, pre-experimental, longitudinal and prospective research was conducted at the "Arnaldo Milián Castro" Hospital in the period from January 2017 to December 2018 to a group of patients who were evaluated before and three months after the preoperative rehabilitation was applied. Results: the most frequent etiology that led to perform total hip arthroplasty was primary degenerative arthropathy. It was found that the greatest number of patients who underwent this procedure were between 60 and 64 years of age (41%). The predominant sex was male (68.9%). With the application of the preoperative rehabilitation treatment, a significant clinical improvement could be evidenced when applying the Harris test and a good final result was obtained according to the classifier of that test in most cases (59%). The most frequent complication was surgical wound sepsis. Conclusions: preoperative rehabilitation contributes to the success of total hip arthroplasty because it achieves clinical and functional improvement, avoids postoperative complications, improves quality of life and alleviates the consequences of aging.