Medical News Today -- “Rehabilitation medicine is facing a major challenge today,” says Dr. Karsten Dreinhöfer (Head of Department for Orthopaedics and Orthopaedic Surgery, Medical Park Berlin Humboldtmühle, Germany) speaking at the EFORT Congress in Vienna. “Not only in Germany but in many other European countries too, the trend is towards the shortest possible stay in an acute hospital after orthopaedic or trauma-related surgery. This means patient care is shifting increasingly to the rehabilitation sector, which must then be appropriately equipped and trained.” But demographic developments are also presenting a significant challenge to orthopaedic rehabilitation: with modern surgical procedures, surgery such as joint replacement operations can be carried out on more and more patients, including the elderly and the very elderly, who then require special care and mobilization assistance, says Dr. Dreinhöfer, who has been appointed to the professorship for musculoskeletal rehabilitation, prevention and health care research at the Charité in Berlin. Broad interdisciplinary cooperation is also necessary, he says. “Multimodal concepts have proven to be especially effective in numerous diseases of the musculoskeletal system,” says Dr. Dreinhöfer, speaking of a further important trend. “This involves orthopaedics working together with other disciplines, such as physiotherapy, psychotherapy and sports sciences, to be able to help effectively such common complaints as back pain.” He says it is also important to cooperate across various health sectors. “It is increasingly important to optimise, via treatment pathways, the transition from the pre-inpatient sector, to acute care and to rehabilitation.”
