The inaugural World Prehabilitation Day, September 16, 2026, represented a landmark moment for a field that has grown from an emerging idea into an increasingly important part of perioperative care.
Prehabilitation is built on a simple principle: recovery from surgery starts before surgery. The weeks before an operation are an opportunity to prepare through exercise, nutritional optimisation, psychological support and management of modifiable risk factors. This multimodal approach helps patients build physiological reserve, address malnutrition, improve confidence and take an active role in preparing for treatment.
The impact of making prehabilitation part of routine care is clear. Prehab is helping patients arrive for surgery better prepared, reducing hospital stays and dramatically lowering cancellations caused by patients being medically unfit on the day.
World Prehabilitation Day recognizes the clinicians, researchers and, most importantly, patients who have helped build this field. The ambition should be for personalised, multimodal preparation to become a routine part of high-quality perioperative care - because the best recovery starts before surgery.
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