A Well-Nourished Groton Spine Heals Better

Your health status and nutritional status mirror each other. Factors like serum levels, weight and other issues determine nutritional status. “ABCD” are factors taken into account – Anthropomorphic status (weight/body), Biochemical (blood tests), Clinical (how well the body functions work as checked by a physician) and Dietary (what you eat). Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office can deduce lots about the nutritional status of a Groton chiropractic patient during the first clinical Groton chiropractic examination and set up a treatment plan to deal with any nutritional concerns that pop up especially in patients who may be susceptible to a back surgery or any other surgical intervention for that matter. A good pre-surgical nutritional status will help Groton post-surgical healing and diminish Groton post-back surgical complications.Good status also helps healing with non-surgical care!

One test that is a good marker of your Groton 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 – indicate a malnourished state and are indicative of post-surgical recovery complication rates, especially for patients who experience anterior cervical discectomy and fusion. Low albumin concentrations in patients 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, malnourished patients accounted for 28% 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) Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office can help you get a Groton blood test to check your levels. Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office considers statistics like this and understands how important nutrition is for our Groton chiropractic patients’ health and healing as well as their spine care. Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office 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 influential 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’s not good! (3) While these stats did not put the hospital care in a good light, they did alert the hospital to do more to help these patients who present with a known risk before surgery. Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office searches for ways to preempt Groton health issues by checking for them early on!

Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office looks to help Groton back pain patients avoid back surgery if possible, and Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office is also effective at helping our back pain patients attain good nutritional and physical shape before and after surgery as required. Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office is poised to work with Groton back pain patients who intend to get themselves into better shape and keep surgery at bay when possible. 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 potential healing if surgery is called for as well as when a non-surgical healing approach is used.

Count on Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office, your back pain specialty practice, to be your Groton nutritional status guide.