Nutritional Status Affects Spine Healing

Your health status and nutritional status mirror each other. Nutritional status is measured by many factors: serum levels, weight, and other issues. “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). Spinal Care Clinic can deduce lots about the nutritional status of a Burlington and Hamilton chiropractic patient during the initial clinical Burlington and Hamilton chiropractic examination and set up a treatment plan to take care of any nutritional concerns that pop up 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 help Burlington and Hamilton post-surgical healing and diminish Burlington and Hamilton post-back surgical complications.Good status also helps healing with non-surgical care!

One test that is a good indicator of your Burlington and Hamilton nutritional status is the serum albumin concentration. Researchers talk about how nutritional status affects 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 with low albumin concentrations before surgery had higher rates of having 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 influenced by pre-operative nutritional status, an issue that a patient can address before the surgery. (2) Spinal Care Clinic can help you get a Burlington and Hamilton blood test to check your levels. Spinal Care Clinic considers statistics like this and understands how important nutrition is for our Burlington and Hamilton chiropractic patients’ health and healing as well as their spine care. Spinal Care Clinic is prepared to help maximize your nutritional status for optimal healing preoperatively, postoperatively and back surgery-preventatively!

Lastly, the nutritional status of spine surgery patients at an orthopedic hospital was gathered using the Nutritional Risk Score 2002 at admission and discharge. Their 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 had nutritional 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’s not good! (3) While these stats may not seem good for the hospital care, they did put the hospital on notice to do more to help these patients who present with a known risk before surgery. Spinal Care Clinic searches for ways to preempt Burlington and Hamilton health issues by looking for them early on!

Spinal Care Clinic certainly wants to help Burlington and Hamilton back pain patients stay away from back surgery if possible, and Spinal Care Clinic is also effective at directing our back pain patients attain good nutritional and physical shape before and after surgery as required. Spinal Care Clinic is poised to cooperate with Burlington and Hamilton back pain patients who desire a healthier nutritional status and keep surgery at bay when feasible. It’s not always a simple path to a healthy nutritional status, but it’s a valuable 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 chosen.

Count on Spinal Care Clinic, your back pain specialty practice, to be your Burlington and Hamilton nutritional status guide.