Do not suffer from back pain! Neurosurgeon about problems with the spine

Article from the newspaper: AiF Health No.8 25/02/2016 

ЖComplaints of the back pain, perhaps are one of the most frequent reasons for seeking medical help. As a rule belated.
 
Fearing operation, many patients hold out to the last, going to "give up" to the surgeon when it is unbearable. How Russian medicine can help such patients?
 

Dmitriy Dzukaev, one of the leading neurosurgeons, head of the Moscow Spinal Centre at the City Hospital No. 67 gave us few pieces of advice.

Tatyana Guryanova, AIF: Dmitriy Nikolaevich, what are the problems with which patients most often come to your clinic?


Dmitriy Dzukaev: Mostly with back pain - chronic or acute, caused by the sports or excessive household chores. Typically, such patients come to us in an elective fashion. Others, with an acute spinal injury after traffic accidents, falls, and sometimes with the height of patients own height, are admitted in hospital emergency department. Unfortunately, severe injuries become more and more often.
 
The number of patients suffering from degenerative spine diseases has also increased. And if before this problem was confined to elder age, now we see it more often in younger patients, from 20 to 40 years of age.

- In your opinion, what is the reason?​

- Inadequate loads on the spine, in which suffers the weakest part - usually lumbar or cervical spine.

- And I have always thought that our spine, by contrast, suffers from a lack of movements.…

– And this problem is still relevant. Because most of their life modern city dwellers are sitting at home, in the car, at the office... And then rush to the gym. Mastering new, sometimes exotic sports, physically untrained young people earn offset vertebrae, hernias, narrowing of the vertebral canal, compressing the nerve structures that eventually may lead to serious, irreversible consequences, even permanent disability. We should be more careful with our spine. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to avoid problems and even surgery.​

– …Which many fear as a fire …

–I can understand these people very well. The reason for their fear - a large number of unsatisfactory results of such operations. Some doctors discourage patients from having surgery, advising them to endure to the last moment. In my opinion, this is absurd! How one can suffer such problems for a long time! Endure the pain!​

– But you were talking about a large number of failed spinal surgeries!​

– To ensure that this does not happen, it is important to choose the clinic, where everything is optimized to work with spinal pathology, including high-tech equipment, highly qualified specialists, knowing every detail of this complex, delicate job, in which no mistakes are allowed.

– Are there any modern clinics like this in Russia?​

– Of course! Thanks to the healthcare modernization, which, in my opinion, made a great deal for the development of our medicine, today patients with spinal pathology have a choice. For example, our Spinal Centre. Considering the number of highly qualified specialists and by a combination of computer, robotic technology, without false modesty, it is one of the best clinics in the world. Right during the operation we can do CT of the affected spine, then this information gets into the "brain" of the robotic surgeon, who together with the human surgeon plans the best access point to the lesion, decides the best way to get to it, and which implant fits best for this particular case.​

– Are these operations available in Russia?​

– For sure! Last year, our Center had more than 300 quotas. This means that 300 patients from Moscow with serious spine diseases got high-tech, expensive treatment completely for free. I hope this year will be the same.​

– I heard that your center also provide rehabilitation for patients with spinal pathologies.​…

– Yes, we have a treatment that is called, " the whole package." This is our philosophy. After surgery, we do not send the patient home but organize complete rehabilitation support. Already in 2-3 days after surgery for spinal hernia patients are doing exercises in the pool and the gym under the special program. Our rehabilitation specialist develops exercise plan individually for each patient. By the way, he attends every surgery to understand what problem he will have to deal with after the procedure.

– Are there such patients that you do not accept for surgery?

– Yes, there are. And quite a few. Of all the patients that come to our clinic for a consultation, we admit only 20-30%. To others, we recommend rehabilitation course, special exercises for the spine, through which they can get a decent quality of life for years to come, perhaps without surgery. I believe that we should not treat the problem when it is already in full swing. We must prevent it.