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). Executive Chiropractic of Iowa can discover much about the nutritional status of a West Des Moines chiropractic patient during the initial clinical West Des Moines chiropractic examination and set up a treatment plan to address any nutritional concerns that pop up especially 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 West Des Moines post-surgical healing and reduce West Des Moines post-back surgical complications.Good status also helps healing with non-surgical care!

One test that is a good marker of your West Des Moines nutritional status is the serum albumin concentration. Researchers discuss how nutritional status influences postsurgical outcomes and healing. Specifically, hypoalbumin levels – low levels under 3.5 g/dL – mark a malnourished state and are predictive of post-surgical recovery complication rates, especially for patients who experience anterior cervical discectomy and fusion. Patients who have 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 affected by pre-operative nutritional status, an issue that a patient can address before the surgery. (2) Executive Chiropractic of Iowa can help you get a West Des Moines blood test to check your levels. Executive Chiropractic of Iowa considers statistics like this and understands how important nutrition is for our West Des Moines chiropractic patients’ health and healing as well as their spine care. Executive Chiropractic of Iowa is ready to help improve your nutritional status for best 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 got nutritional support while admitted to 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 didn’t put the hospital care in a good light, they did alert the hospital to be more aware and ready to help these patients who come in for surgical procedures with a known risk. Executive Chiropractic of Iowa searches for ways to address West Des Moines health issues by checking for them early on!

Executive Chiropractic of Iowa looks to help West Des Moines back pain patients avoid back surgery if possible, and Executive Chiropractic of Iowa is also effective at directing our back pain patients attain good nutritional and physical shape pre- and post-surgically as required. Executive Chiropractic of Iowa is ready to work with West Des Moines back pain patients who desire a healthier nutritional status and keep surgery at bay when feasible. It is not always a simple path to a healthy nutritional status, but it is 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 Executive Chiropractic of Iowa, your back pain specialty practice, to be your West Des Moines nutritional status guide.