Why do I need surgery ? (2)

Preparing for surgery

You may be told to see your general practitioner before surgery to check your overall health. Tell your doctor what medications you are taking, and ask if you should stop taking any medications before surgery. 

 

o make your recovery easier, prepare your home for life after surgery. Place important things within easy reach. Remove safety hazards that might cause you to lose your balance. Arrange for someone to help you at home and around the house after surgery. You will most likely be told not to eat or drink the night before the surgery. Be sure you read and understand this entire booklet. Your surgeon is required to let you know of the potential risks, as well as benefits, of this surgery.

After surgery

Ask your surgeon about your specific recovery plan following surgery. It is important to follow your doctor’s instructions carefully to recover from surgery as quickly as possible and increase your chances of a successful outcome.

 

After surgery your surgeon may refer you to physical therapist who will teach you exercises to improve your strength and increase your mobility. The goal of physical therapy is to help you become active as soon as possible, using safe body movements that protect your neck.

Recovering from pain and surgery is an ongoing process. How fast you recover depends on your commitment to working closely with your physical therapist, and moving and exercising correctly, as recommended by your surgeon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference: www.brain-spine.com.hk/
It is not intended as medical advice to any specific person. If you have any need for personal advice or have any questions regarding your health, please consult your orthopedic doctors for diagnosis and treatment.

Why do I need surgery ? (2)

Preparing for surgery

You may be told to see your general practitioner before surgery to check your overall health. Tell your doctor what medications you are taking, and ask if you should stop taking any medications before surgery. 

 

o make your recovery easier, prepare your home for life after surgery. Place important things within easy reach. Remove safety hazards that might cause you to lose your balance. Arrange for someone to help you at home and around the house after surgery. You will most likely be told not to eat or drink the night before the surgery. Be sure you read and understand this entire booklet. Your surgeon is required to let you know of the potential risks, as well as benefits, of this surgery.

After surgery

Ask your surgeon about your specific recovery plan following surgery. It is important to follow your doctor’s instructions carefully to recover from surgery as quickly as possible and increase your chances of a successful outcome.

 

After surgery your surgeon may refer you to physical therapist who will teach you exercises to improve your strength and increase your mobility. The goal of physical therapy is to help you become active as soon as possible, using safe body movements that protect your neck.

Recovering from pain and surgery is an ongoing process. How fast you recover depends on your commitment to working closely with your physical therapist, and moving and exercising correctly, as recommended by your surgeon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference: www.brain-spine.com.hk/
It is not intended as medical advice to any specific person. If you have any need for personal advice or have any questions regarding your health, please consult your orthopedic doctors for diagnosis and treatment.

Why do I need surgery ? (2)

Preparing for surgery

You may be told to see your general practitioner before surgery to check your overall health. Tell your doctor what medications you are taking, and ask if you should stop taking any medications before surgery. 

 

o make your recovery easier, prepare your home for life after surgery. Place important things within easy reach. Remove safety hazards that might cause you to lose your balance. Arrange for someone to help you at home and around the house after surgery. You will most likely be told not to eat or drink the night before the surgery. Be sure you read and understand this entire booklet. Your surgeon is required to let you know of the potential risks, as well as benefits, of this surgery.

After surgery

Ask your surgeon about your specific recovery plan following surgery. It is important to follow your doctor’s instructions carefully to recover from surgery as quickly as possible and increase your chances of a successful outcome.

 

After surgery your surgeon may refer you to physical therapist who will teach you exercises to improve your strength and increase your mobility. The goal of physical therapy is to help you become active as soon as possible, using safe body movements that protect your neck.

Recovering from pain and surgery is an ongoing process. How fast you recover depends on your commitment to working closely with your physical therapist, and moving and exercising correctly, as recommended by your surgeon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference: www.brain-spine.com.hk/
It is not intended as medical advice to any specific person. If you have any need for personal advice or have any questions regarding your health, please consult your orthopedic doctors for diagnosis and treatment.

Why do I need surgery ? (2)

Preparing for surgery

You may be told to see your general practitioner before surgery to check your overall health. Tell your doctor what medications you are taking, and ask if you should stop taking any medications before surgery. 

 

o make your recovery easier, prepare your home for life after surgery. Place important things within easy reach. Remove safety hazards that might cause you to lose your balance. Arrange for someone to help you at home and around the house after surgery. You will most likely be told not to eat or drink the night before the surgery. Be sure you read and understand this entire booklet. Your surgeon is required to let you know of the potential risks, as well as benefits, of this surgery.

After surgery

Ask your surgeon about your specific recovery plan following surgery. It is important to follow your doctor’s instructions carefully to recover from surgery as quickly as possible and increase your chances of a successful outcome.

 

After surgery your surgeon may refer you to physical therapist who will teach you exercises to improve your strength and increase your mobility. The goal of physical therapy is to help you become active as soon as possible, using safe body movements that protect your neck.

Recovering from pain and surgery is an ongoing process. How fast you recover depends on your commitment to working closely with your physical therapist, and moving and exercising correctly, as recommended by your surgeon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference: www.brain-spine.com.hk/
It is not intended as medical advice to any specific person. If you have any need for personal advice or have any questions regarding your health, please consult your orthopedic doctors for diagnosis and treatment.

Why do I need surgery ? (2)

Preparing for surgery

You may be told to see your general practitioner before surgery to check your overall health. Tell your doctor what medications you are taking, and ask if you should stop taking any medications before surgery. 

 

o make your recovery easier, prepare your home for life after surgery. Place important things within easy reach. Remove safety hazards that might cause you to lose your balance. Arrange for someone to help you at home and around the house after surgery. You will most likely be told not to eat or drink the night before the surgery. Be sure you read and understand this entire booklet. Your surgeon is required to let you know of the potential risks, as well as benefits, of this surgery.

After surgery

Ask your surgeon about your specific recovery plan following surgery. It is important to follow your doctor’s instructions carefully to recover from surgery as quickly as possible and increase your chances of a successful outcome.

After surgery your surgeon may refer you to physical therapist who will teach you exercises to improve your strength and increase your mobility. The goal of physical therapy is to help you become active as soon as possible, using safe body movements that protect your neck.

Recovering from pain and surgery is an ongoing process. How fast you recover depends on your commitment to working closely with your physical therapist, and moving and exercising correctly, as recommended by your surgeon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference: www.brain-spine.com.hk/
It is not intended as medical advice to any specific person. If you have any need for personal advice or have any questions regarding your health, please consult your orthopedic doctors for diagnosis and treatment.

Managing Back Pain During Your Pregnancy

Along with morning sickness, food cravings and weight gain, back pain can be a common complaint during pregnancy. There are a few things you can do, however, to prevent pregnancy-related back pain or manage your discomfort once it starts.

Preparing for a baby's birth can be an exciting time. But as any woman with a dog-eared copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting knows, a certain amount of physical discomfort is normal during pregnancy and, well, to be expected. Back pain is a common complaint in the months leading up to delivery, especially during the final trimester, but there are a few things you can do to manage your back pain so that you can keep the focus on what's most important — getting ready to welcome your new baby!

It's Not Just You...
According to the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, more than 50% of pregnant women report low back pain at some point during their term; some studies have found the incidence to be as high as 70%. "The incidence of low back pain in pregnant women is well over double the incidence of back pain in those who are not pregnant in the same age group," says orthopaedic surgeon John G. Peters, MD, medical director of Medtronic, Inc., the world's leading spinal device company.

According to the American Pregnancy Association, women most frequently report low back pain later in their pregnancies, as the baby grows larger and heavier; however, some women also start feeling low back pain early in their term. Women who may be most at risk for developing back pain during their pregnancies are those who are overweight (though studies are inconclusive on this), or who experienced back pain prior to becoming pregnant. Women who lack flexibility and strength in their back and abdominal muscles and those carrying more than one baby also may be more susceptible.

Reference: www.back.com.

The information provided aims to provide educational purpose, if you have the described conditions as above, please consult your neurosurgeon.

Are there any screening tools to help diagnose neuropathic pain?

Various screening tools are available to help physicians diagnose neuropathic pain. The European Federation of Neurological Societies (EFNS) has recently published updated guidelines that provide an overview of, and recommendations on, the key screening tools. These tools are: the Leeds Assessment of Neuropathic Symptoms and Signs (LANSS)2; Neuropathic Pain Questionnaire (NPQ)3; Douler Neuropathique en 4 questions (DN4)4; PainDETECT5; ID Pain6; and the standardized evaluation of pain (StEP)7. All these screening tools have been validated in various neuropathic pain populations; the LANSS, DN4 and StEP utilize interview questions and physical examination, while the NPQ, PainDETECT and ID Pain use only interview questions. Of relevance to the Hong Kong population, one of the screening tools – the ID Pain – has been translated to and validated. The validity of the 6-item patient-completed questionnaire was assessed in 92 patients with either neuropathic or nociceptive pain. At a score of 3 or more, the questionnaire correctly classified 71% of cases. While screening tools are useful for identifying patients with possible neuropathic pain, particularly by non-specialist physicians, they do have limitations. As noted in the EFNS guidelines, these tools fail to identify 10–20% of patients with physician-diagnosed neuropathic pain; hence, they should be used together with a thorough patient history and physical examination.

ID pain

1 Did the pain feel like pins and needles? 您的痛楚是否好像被針刺般疼痛？

2 Did the pain feel hot/burning? 您的痛楚是否灼熱或好像被火燒一樣？

3 Did the pain feel numb? 您的痛楚是否帶有麻痺？

4 Did the pain feel like electrical shocks? 您的痛楚是否好像觸電一樣？

5 Is the pain made worse with the touch of clothing or bedsheets? 您的痛楚是否因觸碰衣服或床單而加劇？

6 Is the pain limited to your joints? 您的痛楚是否只限於關節部位？

Reference: http://www.neuropainhk.org

The information provided aims to provide educational purpose, if you have the described conditions as above, please consult your doctor immediately.

Hydrodiscetomy: Cutting with Water

Hydrodiscetomy is solving unmet needs and improving outcomes in spine surgery by providing fluidjet-driven medical devices for use in ‘open’ and ‘minimally
invasive’ spine procedures.

The products empower neurosurgeons to simultaneously cut, ablate, and remove hard and soft tissue quickly, safely, and effectively— without the collateral thermal or mechanical trauma of other surgical modalities. Imagine being able to remove tissue during back
surgery via an opening the size of a straw—with the aid of a hair-thin, 600-miles-per-hour stream of water, instead of a one- to two-inch incision from an ‘open’ surgery with a
scalpel. Although high-pressure water jets have been employed for many years in
industrial cutting applications, this technology is not easily adapted for use in medicine
because of the unique technical requirements of surgery:

(1) the working fluid must be sterile;
(2) the tools must be tiny and easily maneuverable;
(3) the pump system must be small enough to fit in any operating room; and,
(4) the devices must be safe.

Hydrodiscetomy has overcome the major barriers to the transfer of fluidjet technology from industrial to surgical applications with significant technical innovations. As a result, a growing number of neurosurgeons are using Hydrodiscetomy to wash away patients’ pain in a variety of back procedures. Unique to Hydrodiscetomy’s devices is the use of a ‘collector’ tube, not only to capture the fluidjet stream, but also to create a powerful ‘Venturi’- and-morcellation effect at the active site—resulting in tissue being drawn into the collector tube and thus away from the operative site, without the need for an external suction connection. This also allows optimal visibility during operation of the device—particularly important in spine procedures, where the surgical site is surrounded by vital structures such as nerves and blood vessels. A further major advantage of Hydrodiscetomy is the ability to achieve ‘selective’ tissue excision. The tissue selectivity benefit allows spine surgeons to quickly and safely remove appropriate tissue, such as disc nucleus, without damaging the surrounding harder tissue or vertebral endplates. These advantages illustrate the power and versatility of Hydrodiscetomy to provide solutions to the spine surgeon, enabling efficient surgical procedures and optimal patient outcomes.

Reference: http://www.minimally-invasive-centrehk.com/english/resources/resources_neurosurgery.html
http://www.youtube.com/user/HKHealthConcern#p/u/5/pFLIV3UfQgg

The above information serves as educational reference only, you should consult your neurosurgeon for diagnosis, treatments and surgeries.

Back Pain and Degenerative Disc Disease: Are Artificial Discs the Solution?

There has been considerable excitement among surgeons as well as patients following the recent FDA (Food and Drug Administration) release. The excitement among patients with degenerative disc disease stems from the impression that there is now a safe way to eliminate pain from degenerative discs while at the same time maintaining normal motion. Many of these patients have heard about others with similar problems undergoing fusion procedures in the past, who still continue with persistent pain or had more than one attempt at fusion without success or have developed additional levels of disc degeneration requiring an additional fusion procedure. They have also heard of the successful results following disc arthroplasty in Europe which has been highly publicized by the media in the United States. 

Early Detection and Lumbar Fusions
This is definitely an exciting new addition to our armamentarium for the treatment of degenerative disc disease. When we look at how the evaluation and treatment for degenerative disc disease has developed over the past few years an almost unbelievable amount of progress has been made. We now are better able to identify disc disease early on with MRI and pain generators with discography and facet blocks. Where only a decade ago, lumbar fusions were being performed through large posterior incisions, now they can be performed percutaneously through incisions that are barely visible either anteriorly through the abdomen or through the back. With the use of presently available instrumentation, success rates for one level fusions approach 90-95%. Unfortunately, not every patient who has degenerative disc disease and has a successful fusion has a successful clinical result. There is still a group of patients for whom fusion does not effectively alleviate pain.

Disc Replacement: Risks
Disc replacement arthroplasty has the potential for the treatment of many of the spinal motion segment disorders that are currently being treated both successfully and not so successfully by one of the many fusion techniques. At this relatively early stage of disc replacement development, we do not know all of the problems that may be encountered following these procedures. Because the surgical approach is through the abdomen either retroperitoneal or transperitoneal (around/through the stomach), there are some predictable complications including vascular injury, thrombophlebitis (vein inflammation accompanied by blood clot formation), nerve root injuries, injury to the ureter, and retrograde ejaculation in males.

We also know that a number of disc replacements have failed and have been converted to a fusion with variable clinical outcomes. The removal of artificial discs, especially at the L4-5 level, is fraught with a significant risk of vascular injury because of scarring around the prosthesis. We do not know at the present time how long these prostheses will last and how well they will function. Will they provide enough motion to prevent adjacent segment degeneration, and will the patient with multilevel disease be a candidate for this procedure? Certainly we know that artificial joints produce wear debris and an inflammatory response which escalates over time where this is obviously not a problem with fusion. 

Optimism and Early Results
Spine surgeons in general are very optimistic and excited about total disc arthroplasty and appropriately so. There also will be a learning curve by both the spine surgeon as well as the access surgeons who provide the exposure. Appropriate training via courses and cadaveric labs will help to minimize the learning curve and potential complications. There will no doubt be many improvements and modifications in the prosthetic designs.

Early results are certainly encouraging in the hands of the investigational surgeons but are fraught with the many problems common to the development of a new procedure. Total disc arthroplasty is likely to be a better solution than fusion for many degenerative disorders of the lumbar spine as design improvements continue to be made and as further experience defines the indications for its use.

Reference source: http://www.spineuniverse.com/treatments/emerging/artificial-discs/back-pain-degenerative-disc-disease-artificial

The above information is for educations only, if you have any related disease, plese consult your neurosurgeon for more information.

Spinal neuropathic pain conditions treated with minimally invasive spine surgery by neurosurgeron

If you have back pain and non-surgical treatments aren't working for you, then you may be a candidate for minimally invasive spine surgery.

Minimally invasive spine surgery is different from standard open spine surgery because it combines technology with innovative techniques so you can have smaller incisions, and a shorter hospital stay. In fact, minimally invasive spine surgery can often be performed on an outpatient basis.

Although minimally invasive spine surgery accomplishes what traditional open spine surgery accomplishes, it's an attractive option if you need spine surgery for a certain spine conditions because there are fewer risks involved than in open spine surgery.

Numerous spine conditions can be treated using minimally invasive spine surgery like degenerative disc disease, Herniated discs, Sciatica, Spinal stenosis, Scoliosis or other spinal deformities, Spondylolisthesis, Spinal fractures, Spinal infections Spinal tumors. 

It's important to note that not all spine conditions can be treated using minimally invasive surgery. In rare cases, if you have a certain spinal infection, sometimes it cannot be treated minimally invasively.

If minimally invasive spine surgery is an option for you, your neurosurgeon will explain the types of surgery he or she recommends. In most cases, minimally invasive spine surgery can effectively and safely treat your pain.

Because of rapid advances in technology, many spine disorders now can be treated with minimally invasive surgery, so talk to your doctor about any questions or concerns you have regarding MISS

Reference source: spineuniverse.com

The above information is for educations only, if you have any related disease, plese consult your neurosurgeon for more information.