Objectives: Rehabilitation plays a vital role in the mitigation and improvement of functional limitations associated with aging and chronic conditions. Moderating factors such as sex, age, the medical diagnosis, and rehabilitation timing for admission status, as well as the expected change related to inpatient rehabilitation, are examined to provide a valid basis for the routine assessment of the quality of medical outcomes. Design: An observational study was carried out, placing a focus on general and disease-specific health measurements, to assess representative results of multidisciplinary inpatient rehabilitation. Aspects that were possibly confounding and introduced bias were controlled based on data from a quasiexperimental (waiting) control group. Measures: Existing data or general health indicators were extracted from medical records. The indicators included blood pressure, resting heart rate, self-assessed health, and pain, as well as more diseasespecific indicators of physical function and performance (eg, activities of daily living, walking tests, blood lipids). These are used to identify moderating factors related to health outcomes. Setting and Participants: A standardized collection of routine data from 16,966 patients [61.5 AE 12.5 years; 7871 (46%) women, 9095 (54%) men] with different medical diagnoses before and after rehabilitation were summarized using a descriptive evaluation in terms of a content and factor analysis. Results: Without rehabilitation, general health indicators did not improve independently and remained stable at best [odds ratio (OR) ¼ 0.74], whereas disease-specific indicators improved noticeably after surgery (OR ¼ 3.20). Inpatient rehabilitation was shown to reduce the risk factors associated with certain lifestyles, optimize organ function, and improve well-being in most patients (>70%; cutoff: z-difference >0.20), with a standardized mean difference (SMD) seen in overall medical quality outcome of À0.48 AE 0.37 [pre-vs postrehabilitation: h p 2 ¼ 0.622; d Cohen ¼ À1.22; 95% confidence interval (95% CI) À1.24 to À1.19]. The baseline medical values obtained at the beginning of rehabilitation were influenced by indication, age, and sex (all P < .001); however, these factors have less significant effects on improvements in general health indicators (h p 2 < 0.01). According to the disease-specific results, the greatest improvements were found in older patients (SMD for patients >60 vs 60 years: 95% CI 0.08e0.11) and during the early rehabilitation stage (h p 2 ¼ 0.063).

The incidence of chronic diseases is rising. Rehabilitation plays a vital role in preventing and minimizing the functional limitations associated with chronic conditions and aging. Routine outcome measures include disease-specific and unspecific general health parameters. This study evaluates indicators for medical quality outcomes from 10,373 patients (61.00 AE 13.65 years, 51.7% women) who have undergone orthopedic rehabilitation for three weeks. Inpatient rehabilitation reduces lifestyle-related risk factors, optimizes organ functioning and improves the well-being in the majority of patients (81.3%; SMD = 0.52 AE 0.38). Improvements of unspecific and indication specific outcome parameters can be observed in a comparable magnitude. However, disease specific and unspecific health factors are not directly related to each other (r = 0.19). Age, gender, ICD-classification and time of rehabilitation have an influence on initial values and on indication-specific medical outcomes but are insignificant with regards to improvements in unspecific medical outcome parameters. Inpatient rehabilitation includes two main pathways of medical practice, which can be clearly distinguished in terms of their therapeutic outcome. There are general health interventions, such as lifestyle modifications, diet and physical exercise, and symptom-specific treatments. So multidisciplinary medical rehabilitation improves general well-being and physical functioning as well as reduces risk factors in the majority of patients.

A new inpatient secondary preventive program for patients with musculoskeletal health problems was introduced throughout Austria. The aim of the current work was to evaluate this "Health Prevention Active" program and its possible influences on the quality of medical results upon hospital discharge.This observational study presents monocentric data for 7448 patients (48.99 ± 6.15 years; 53.7% women) with chronic musculoskeletal disorders who completed a 3-week health program. The focus was placed on measuring medical quality outcomes such as BMI, blood pressure, heart rate, pain, subjective ratings, and achieved power output in cycle ergometer exercise testing. We describe pre-post changes before and after the inpatient program and the results of a follow-up survey conducted after 1 year to identify moderating factors related to health outcomes.The medical baseline showed obvious deficits regarding obesity, hypertension, and subjective symptoms. Of all patients, 36.5% were completely inactive. The patient's gender and physical activity had a high impact on the medical baseline status. In total, the majority of patients (86.2%; SMD = -0.78 ± 0.59) responded well to the health prevention program, independent of their ages and lifestyles.Requirements for secondary prevention programs are high. The results of the study reflect the general problems presented by inactivity, obesity, and subjective symptoms like pain. Physical activity was specifically identified as a major factor for the observed medical baseline status. Abbreviations: h p 2 = effect size (partial Eta 2 ), ADL = activities of daily living, BMI = body mass index, EC = Ethics Committee, GHI = general health index (mean value of MED1, MED2, MED3; z), GVA = "Gesundheitsvorsorge Aktiv" ["Health Prevention Active" program], h = hours, ICD = International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems, idx = index for outcome (z), ISI = indication specific index (mean value of MED4, MED5; z), IV = initial value (baseline, pre), MED1 = shape indicator of MQO (BMI and waist circumference; z), MED2 = cardiovascular indicator of MQO (RR and RHR; z), MED3 = subjective indicator of MQO (VAS and EQ-VAS; z), MED4 = performance indicator of MQO (ergometer power in watts; z), MED5 = ADL indicator of MQO (EQ-5D; z), MQO = medical quality outcome (mean value of GHI and ISI; z), N (n) = sample size, P = significance level (risk of error), PA = physical activity, r = correlation coefficient (Pearson), RHR = resting heart rate, RR = Riva-Rocci (abbreviation for blood pressure measurements), Editor: Sinan Kardes.