Patient Education

Condition

Degenerative Disc Disease
Degenerative Disc Disease in the lumbar spine, or lower back, refers to a syndrome in which a compromised disc causes low back pain.

Cervical Disc Herniation
Cervical Disc Herniation causes neck pain by compressing the cervical nerve roots

Cervical Myelopathy (CMS)
Cervical Myelopathy (CMS) refers to impaired function of the spinal cord caused by degenerative changes of the discs and facet joints acquired in adult life.

Treatment

Fusion

Total Disc Arthroplasty (Artificial Disc)

Condition

Congenital Scoliosis
Congenital Scoliosis develops in utero and is present in infancy. A rare condition, affecting one in 10,000, there is no known cause, but in most cases the spinal curve must be corrected surgically.

Neuromuscular Scoliosis
Neuromuscular Scoliosis sometimes develops in individuals who cannot walk due to a neuromuscular condition such as muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy. This may also be called myopathic scoliosis.

Degenerative Scoliosis
Degenerative Scoliosis (adult scoliosis), which is a common condition that occurs later in life as the joints in the spine degenerate.

Treatment

Condition

Compression Fracture
Compression Trauma is the type of fracture in the spine that is typically caused by osteoporosis is generally referred to as a compression fracture. A compression fracture is usually defined as a vertebral bone in the spine that has decreased at least 15 to 20% in height due to fracture.

Burst Fracture
A Burst Fracture is a spinal injury where the vertebra breaks due to immediate and severe compression. Immediate trauma such as a car accident or a severe fall are the leading causes for burst fractures with pieces of the vertebra shattering into surrounding tissues and sometimes the spinal canal.

Treatment

Vertebral Augmentation for Compression Fractures
Vertebral augmentation is a category of surgical procedures that are used to stabilize a fractured vertebra with the goal of reducing the patient’s pain. These procedures are termed vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty, or radiofrequency vertebral augmentation.

Vertebroplasty Procedure
The goals of the vertebroplasty surgical procedure are to stabilize the spinal fracture and to stop the pain caused by the fracture. Vertebroplasty is considered a minimally invasive surgical procedure because the procedure is done through a small puncture in the patient’s skin (as opposed to an open incision). A typical vertebroplasty procedure, described below, usually takes about 1 hour to complete.

Kyphoplasty Procedure
The goals of a kyphoplasty surgical procedure are designed to stop the pain caused by a spinal fracture, to stabilize the bone, and to restore some or all of the lost vertebral body height due to the compression fracture.

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Condition

Spinal Tumors and Back Pain
Most spinal column tumors have spread from another area of the body (metastatic), with the majority originally coming from tumors in the breast, prostate, kidney, lung or thyroid.

Types of Spinal Tumors
There are three common types of spinal tumors that can cause back pain: vertebral column tumors, intradural-extramedullary tumors, and intramedullary tumors.

Metastatic Spine Tumors
A spine tumor is an abnormal growth of tissue found in and/or around the spinal column and/or spinal cord.

Treatment

Condition

Degenerative Disc Disease
Degenerative Disc Disease in the lumbar spine, or lower back, refers to a syndrome in which a compromised disc causes low back pain.

Lumbar Disc Herniation
Lumber Disc Herniation occurs when the disc degenerates and the inner core leaks.

Degenerative Disc Disease
Degenerative Disc Disease in the lumbar spine, or lower back, refers to a syndrome in which a compromised disc causes low back pain.

Pars Defect
A Pars Defect is believed to be a stress fracture. A stress fracture happens from repeated strain on a bone. At first the body is able to heal the damage. If the repeated strains happen faster than the body can respond, the bone eventually fractures. People are not born with spondylolysis. It commonly first appears in childhood. Football linemen and gymnasts are affected the most.

Spondylolisthesis
Spondylolisthesis is a condition in which a defect in a part of the spine causes vertebra to slip to one side of the body.

Sciatica
Sciatica describes symptoms that travel from the low back and produce leg pain.

Spinal Stenosis
With Spinal Stenosis, facet joints in the spine can enlarge and place pressure on the spinal nerve roots or spinal cord, causing back pain, leg pain, arm pain and other symptoms during certain activities.

Treatment