The Language of Prehab and Surgical Recovery
A reference guide to the key clinical terms used across prehabilitation, rehabilitation and surgical care. Written by the Clovo team to support healthcare professionals, insurers and research partners navigating this rapidly evolving space.
A
5 terms
Adaptive Recovery
A personalised approach to post-operative rehabilitation in which a patient’s recovery plan is continuously adjusted based on their progress, reported wellbeing, and adherence. Clovo’s AI recovery coach, Amy, delivers adaptive recovery programmes that respond in real time to individual patient data, ensuring care remains appropriate and effective at every stage.
Adherence
The degree to which a patient follows their prescribed prehabilitation or rehabilitation programme, including completing exercises, maintaining nutritional guidance, and engaging consistently with their recovery plan. Adherence is a primary predictor of surgical outcomes and is one of the core metrics tracked by Clovo throughout the patient pathway.
Aerobic Capacity
A measure of the body’s ability to take in and use oxygen during sustained physical activity, commonly assessed using cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET). Aerobic capacity is a key indicator of surgical readiness and a primary target of prehabilitation programmes, with research demonstrating that higher preoperative aerobic capacity is associated with fewer postoperative complications and shorter hospital stays.
Anaesthetic Risk
The degree of risk a patient faces from anaesthesia during surgery, influenced by factors including age, comorbidities, functional capacity, and nutritional status. Prehabilitation programmes that improve aerobic capacity and nutritional health ahead of surgery have been shown to reduce anaesthetic risk and improve patient tolerance of surgical procedures.
Assessment (Baseline)
The initial clinical evaluation of a patient prior to beginning a prehabilitation or rehabilitation programme, used to establish a functional, nutritional, and psychological baseline against which progress can be measured. At Clovo, baseline assessment is the first stage of the patient pathway and informs the personalised recovery plan delivered by Amy.
B
3 terms
Baseline Functional Capacity
A patient’s physical ability to perform everyday activities prior to beginning a prehabilitation or rehabilitation programme, used as a reference point against which recovery progress is measured. Establishing baseline functional capacity is the first step in Clovo’s patient pathway, informing the personalised programme delivered by Amy and enabling clinicians to track meaningful improvements over time.
Body Composition
The proportion of fat, muscle, bone and water that makes up a patient’s total body weight, assessed as part of preoperative evaluation to identify nutritional deficiencies and guide prehabilitation planning. Optimising body composition ahead of surgery — particularly preserving lean muscle mass — is associated with faster recovery, reduced complications and shorter hospital stays.
Body Mass Index (BMI)
A measure of body weight relative to height, used as an indicator of nutritional status and surgical risk. Patients with a BMI outside the healthy range face elevated risks of surgical complications, prolonged recovery and anaesthetic challenges, making BMI a key consideration in preoperative assessment and prehabilitation programme design.
C
4 terms
Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing (CPET)
A non-invasive test that measures the body’s cardiovascular and respiratory response to exercise, used to assess a patient’s aerobic capacity and surgical fitness ahead of major surgery. CPET results are widely used by anaesthetists and surgical teams to stratify risk and determine whether a patient would benefit from prehabilitation prior to their procedure.
Clinical Governance
The framework of systems, processes and accountability structures through which healthcare organisations ensure the delivery of safe, effective and high-quality care. For digital health platforms like Clovo, robust clinical governance includes rule-based safety layers, escalation pathways, audit trails and information governance protocols that meet NHS and regulatory standards.
Comorbidity
The presence of one or more additional health conditions alongside a primary diagnosis, which can significantly affect surgical risk, recovery time and rehabilitation outcomes. Prehabilitation programmes designed to accommodate comorbidities — such as diabetes, obesity or cardiovascular disease — are essential for ensuring all patients, regardless of baseline health, can benefit from structured preoperative preparation.
Conditioning (Physical)
The process of improving a patient’s strength, endurance and overall physical fitness through structured exercise in preparation for surgery or treatment. Physical conditioning is a core pillar of Clovo’s prehabilitation programmes, delivered through personalised plans adapted to each patient’s abilities, surgical pathway and progress.
D
2 terms
Digital Health
The use of technology — including mobile applications, artificial intelligence and remote monitoring — to deliver healthcare services, support clinical decision-making and improve patient outcomes. Clovo operates within the digital health space, using AI to scale prehabilitation and rehabilitation programmes that would otherwise be limited by staffing constraints and geographic barriers.
Discharge Planning
The process of preparing a patient for safe transition from hospital to home or community care following surgery, including arrangements for ongoing rehabilitation, medication management and follow-up appointments. Effective discharge planning is closely linked to prehabilitation outcomes, with patients who are better prepared before surgery typically requiring shorter hospital stays and less intensive post-discharge support.
E
2 terms
ERAS (Enhanced Recovery After Surgery)
A multimodal, evidence-based perioperative care pathway designed to reduce surgical stress, minimise complications and accelerate patient recovery. ERAS protocols combine preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative interventions across nutrition, pain management, mobility and patient education. Prehabilitation complements ERAS by optimising a patient’s physiological reserve before surgery begins, with research demonstrating that prehabilitated patients exhibit greater resilience under ERAS care and maintain functional gains for longer post-operatively.
Exercise Capacity
A measure of the maximum amount of physical exertion a patient can sustain, reflecting the combined function of the cardiovascular, respiratory and musculoskeletal systems. Exercise capacity is both a key predictor of surgical outcomes and a primary target of prehabilitation programmes, with improvements in aerobic fitness before surgery associated with fewer postoperative complications, shorter hospital stays and faster functional recovery.
F
2 terms
Frailty
A clinical syndrome characterised by reduced physiological reserve and increased vulnerability to stressors, commonly assessed in older surgical patients to identify those at elevated risk of poor postoperative outcomes. Frailty is a key consideration in preoperative assessment, with prehabilitation programmes designed to improve strength, nutrition and functional capacity offering a meaningful opportunity to reduce frailty and improve surgical resilience ahead of planned procedures.
Functional Capacity
The ability of a patient to perform the physical and cognitive demands of daily life, used as a key measure of surgical readiness and recovery progress. Functional capacity is assessed at baseline before a prehabilitation programme begins and monitored throughout, with improvements indicating that a patient is better prepared for the physiological demands of surgery and more likely to achieve a faster, more complete recovery.
G
1 term
Glycaemic Control
The management of blood glucose levels within a target range, particularly important for surgical patients with diabetes or insulin resistance. Poor glycaemic control ahead of surgery is associated with increased risk of wound infection, delayed healing and postoperative complications, making nutritional and lifestyle optimisation through prehabilitation a valuable tool for improving metabolic health before planned procedures.
H
2 terms
Health Literacy
The ability of a patient to understand, process and act upon health information relevant to their care, including instructions around medication, exercise, nutrition and recovery. Health literacy is a core pillar of Clovo’s prehabilitation and rehabilitation programmes, with Amy delivering education tailored to each patient’s surgical pathway to ensure they are informed, prepared and confident ahead of treatment.
Hospital Readmission
The return of a patient to hospital within a defined period following discharge, often used as a key performance indicator for the quality of surgical care and postoperative recovery. Reducing hospital readmission rates is a primary goal of prehabilitation, with patients who are better prepared before surgery and supported through structured rehabilitation programmes demonstrating significantly lower rates of readmission and associated healthcare costs.
I
1 term
Integrated Care
A model of healthcare delivery in which services across primary, secondary and community settings are coordinated around the needs of the individual patient, reducing fragmentation and improving continuity of care. Integrated care is increasingly prioritised by NHS systems and health commissioners as a means of improving outcomes and reducing costs, with digital platforms like Clovo playing a growing role in connecting prehabilitation and rehabilitation support to existing clinical pathways.
L
2 terms
Lean Muscle Mass
The total weight of muscle tissue in the body, excluding fat, used as a key indicator of nutritional status, physical conditioning and surgical readiness. Preserving and building lean muscle mass through prehabilitation is associated with faster postoperative recovery, reduced complications and shorter hospital stays, with research demonstrating that prehabilitated patients maintain lean muscle mass for longer following surgery compared to those receiving rehabilitation alone.
Length of Stay
The number of days a patient remains in hospital following a surgical procedure, used as a primary measure of surgical efficiency and a key driver of healthcare costs. Prehabilitation has been shown to reduce average length of stay by up to four days, representing a significant cost saving for healthcare providers and a meaningful improvement in patient experience and recovery trajectory.
M
3 terms
Malnutrition
A state of nutritional deficiency in which a patient lacks adequate protein, energy or micronutrients to maintain normal physiological function, commonly identified during preoperative assessment as a significant risk factor for surgical complications and delayed recovery. Addressing malnutrition through structured nutritional guidance before surgery is a core component of prehabilitation, with Clovo’s platform providing personalised meal planning and nutritional tracking to support patients in optimising their dietary status ahead of treatment.
Mindfulness
A psychological practice involving focused awareness of the present moment, used within prehabilitation and rehabilitation programmes to support cognitive health, reduce anxiety and improve patient resilience ahead of surgery and during recovery. Mindfulness is a core pillar of Clovo’s approach to patient wellbeing, delivered through guided exercises within the platform to support the mental as well as physical preparation of surgical patients.
Multimodal Prehabilitation
A comprehensive approach to preoperative preparation that combines interventions across exercise, nutrition and psychological support to optimise a patient’s physiological reserve before surgery. Multimodal prehabilitation is the evidence-based gold standard in surgical preparation, with research demonstrating that patients who receive combined physical, nutritional and psychological support before surgery achieve significantly better postoperative outcomes than those receiving unimodal or no prehabilitation.
N
2 terms
Nutrition
The process by which the body obtains and uses food to support growth, repair and physiological function, representing a core pillar of prehabilitation and rehabilitation programmes. Optimising nutritional status before surgery — through adequate protein intake, caloric balance and micronutrient sufficiency — is associated with improved wound healing, preserved lean muscle mass, reduced complication rates and faster functional recovery. Clovo’s platform delivers personalised nutritional guidance, meal planning and calorie tracking to support patients in meeting their dietary goals throughout the surgical pathway.
Nutritional Screening
A systematic process used by clinicians to identify patients at risk of malnutrition before surgery, typically using validated tools such as the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) or the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA). Nutritional screening is a standard component of preoperative assessment and informs the dietary interventions included within a patient’s prehabilitation programme, ensuring that nutritional deficiencies are addressed before they can compromise surgical outcomes.
O
2 terms
Oncology
The branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and management of cancer, representing one of Clovo’s primary clinical contexts. Patients undergoing oncological surgery — including procedures for colorectal, lung and breast cancer — face significant physiological demands that prehabilitation has been shown to address effectively, with multimodal preoperative preparation improving functional recovery, reducing complications and supporting patients through the physical and psychological challenges of cancer treatment.
Outcomes (Patient)
The measurable results of healthcare interventions as experienced by the patient, including functional recovery, quality of life, complication rates, length of hospital stay and readmission rates. Patient outcomes are the primary metric by which prehabilitation and rehabilitation programmes are evaluated, with Clovo’s platform generating structured longitudinal data across engagement, adherence and recovery signals to support service evaluation, pathway optimisation and evidence generation for research partners and healthcare commissioners.
P
5 terms
Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs)
Measures of a patient’s health status and quality of life reported directly by the patient, without interpretation by a clinician, used to evaluate the impact of healthcare interventions from the patient’s perspective. PROs are increasingly required by NHS commissioners and research partners as evidence of the real-world effectiveness of digital health platforms, with Clovo capturing structured patient-reported data throughout the prehabilitation and rehabilitation pathway to support service evaluation and outcomes reporting.
Perioperative Care
The comprehensive medical and nursing care provided to a patient across the three phases of surgery — preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative — with the goal of optimising outcomes and minimising risk at every stage of the surgical journey. Prehabilitation sits within the perioperative care framework as a preoperative intervention, complementing intraoperative clinical care and postoperative rehabilitation to deliver a continuous, patient-centred recovery pathway.
Physiological Reserve
The capacity of the body’s organ systems to respond to and recover from the stress of major surgery, determined by factors including cardiovascular fitness, nutritional status, muscle strength and psychological resilience. Physiological reserve is the primary target of prehabilitation, with structured preoperative interventions across exercise, nutrition and psychological support building the functional capacity patients need to withstand surgical stress and recover more effectively.
Postoperative Complications
Adverse events that occur following surgery, including wound infection, pneumonia, cardiovascular events and prolonged immobility, which can significantly extend hospital stays, increase healthcare costs and impair long-term recovery. Prehabilitation has been shown to reduce the risk of postoperative complications by up to 64%, making preoperative preparation one of the highest-impact interventions available to surgical teams and healthcare commissioners.
Prehabilitation
A structured programme of preoperative interventions designed to improve a patient’s physical, nutritional and psychological readiness for surgery, with the goal of reducing complications, shortening hospital stays and accelerating recovery. Prehabilitation encompasses exercise, nutrition and psychological support, tailored to the individual patient’s baseline health, surgical pathway and personal goals. Despite clinical evidence demonstrating that prehabilitation reduces postoperative complications by up to 64% and cuts average hospital stays by four days, fewer than 10% of patients who would benefit currently receive structured prehabilitation, a gap that Clovo was built to address through AI-driven, scalable delivery.
R
3 terms
Recovery (Functional)
The process by which a patient returns to their pre-surgical level of physical, cognitive and psychological function following an operation, used as a primary measure of the success of both prehabilitation and postoperative rehabilitation programmes. Functional recovery is tracked by Clovo throughout the patient pathway, with data on movement, adherence and patient-reported wellbeing providing clinicians and commissioners with meaningful evidence of recovery progress and programme effectiveness.
Rehabilitation
A structured programme of post-operative interventions designed to restore a patient’s physical function, strength and independence following surgery or treatment, delivered across exercise, nutrition and psychological support. Rehabilitation complements prehabilitation within Clovo’s platform, with Amy adapting each patient’s recovery plan in real time based on their progress, reported wellbeing and adherence to ensure that post-surgical support remains personalised, effective and clinically appropriate throughout the recovery pathway.
Risk Stratification
The process of categorising surgical patients according to their level of perioperative risk, using clinical assessments of functional capacity, comorbidities, nutritional status and frailty to determine the level of preoperative preparation and postoperative support required. Risk stratification informs prehabilitation programme design, ensuring that patients at higher risk of complications receive more intensive preoperative intervention, and provides healthcare commissioners with a framework for prioritising prehabilitation resources across surgical pathways.
S
4 terms
Sarcopaenia
The progressive loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength associated with ageing, malnutrition or prolonged inactivity, representing a significant risk factor for poor surgical outcomes, extended hospital stays and delayed functional recovery. Sarcopaenia is a key consideration in preoperative assessment, with prehabilitation programmes targeting physical conditioning and nutritional optimisation offering an effective means of preserving and rebuilding muscle mass ahead of planned surgery.
Surgical Pathway
The structured sequence of clinical care and interventions a patient follows from diagnosis through surgery to recovery, encompassing preoperative assessment, prehabilitation, surgical treatment, postoperative rehabilitation and discharge planning. Clovo is designed to integrate with existing surgical pathways across oncology, general surgery and orthopaedics, delivering AI-driven prehabilitation and rehabilitation support that complements clinical care at every stage of the patient journey.
Surgical Resilience
The capacity of a patient to withstand the physiological stress of surgery and return to homeostasis in the shortest possible time, determined by the strength of their preoperative physiological reserve and the quality of their perioperative care. Surgical resilience is the primary goal of prehabilitation, with multimodal preoperative programmes building the physical, nutritional and psychological foundations patients need to tolerate surgical stress and recover more effectively.
Surgical Stress Response
The complex physiological reaction triggered by surgical trauma, characterised by the release of stress hormones, activation of the immune system, increased metabolic demands and accelerated muscle breakdown. The surgical stress response is a primary driver of postoperative complications and delayed recovery, with prehabilitation shown to attenuate its effects by strengthening a patient’s physiological reserve and functional capacity before surgery takes place.
T
2 terms
Total Hip Replacement / Total Knee Replacement
Surgical procedures in which a damaged hip or knee joint is replaced with an artificial implant, representing two of the most commonly performed elective orthopaedic operations in the UK. Both procedures are associated with significant recovery demands, making prehabilitation particularly valuable in this patient population, with research demonstrating that patients who complete structured preoperative programmes ahead of joint replacement surgery achieve faster functional recovery, greater range of motion and reduced length of hospital stay.
Trimodal Prehabilitation
A comprehensive approach to preoperative preparation that combines three distinct intervention components, exercise, nutrition and psychological support, delivered simultaneously to optimise a patient’s physiological reserve before surgery. Trimodal prehabilitation is the most extensively researched form of multimodal prehabilitation, with studies in colorectal and cancer surgery demonstrating that patients who receive all three components achieve significantly better functional recovery outcomes than those receiving single or dual-component programmes.
U
1 term
Unimodal Prehabilitation
A preoperative preparation programme that focuses on a single intervention component, typically exercise alone, rather than combining physical, nutritional and psychological support. While unimodal prehabilitation has demonstrated some clinical benefit, evidence consistently shows that multimodal and trimodal approaches produce superior outcomes, with patients receiving combined interventions across exercise, nutrition and psychological support achieving greater improvements in functional capacity, fewer postoperative complications and faster recovery.
V
1 term
Value-Based Care
A healthcare delivery model in which providers are reimbursed based on patient outcomes rather than the volume of services delivered, incentivising interventions that demonstrably improve health, reduce complications and lower long-term costs. Value-based care is increasingly adopted by NHS commissioners and private healthcare payers as a framework for evaluating digital health platforms, with Clovo’s outcomes data — spanning engagement, adherence, functional recovery and complication rates — providing the evidence base needed to demonstrate measurable value across surgical pathways.
W
1 term
Wound Healing
The biological process by which the body repairs damaged tissue following surgery, progressing through stages of inflammation, tissue formation and remodelling to restore skin integrity and function. Wound healing is significantly influenced by a patient’s preoperative nutritional status, physical conditioning and glycaemic control, with prehabilitation programmes that address these factors shown to accelerate healing, reduce the risk of wound infection and minimise the likelihood of postoperative complications that can extend hospital stays and delay functional recovery.