Introduction: The world is seeing a growth of the aging population and the number of surgical treatments in this age group which is also true for spinal conditions. The greatest increase in spinal fusion surgery has been observed in patients aged 65 years and above. Only a few works of literature were available on the issue, especially in India.
Materials and methods: An observational study in which 70 patients aged 70 years and above who underwent spinal surgery for degenerative and traumatic spinal injury, from January 2013 to July 2017 in the neurosurgery department of a single institute, were reviewed. Around 53 patients were assessed for disability/functional outcome and their health-related quality of life (HRQOL) using the Oswestry disability index (ODI) and RAND 36-item health survey 1.0 scoring method (SF-36) comparing the preoperative and postoperative status.
Result: The mean age was 74.19 years (range 70-91 years). Laminectomy-19 (27.14%) was the most common surgical procedure performed. Overall there were nine (12.85%) major complications with mortality of five (7.14%) patients. There was a significant reduction of crippled patients (14-9, P = 0.009) in the ODI score. SF-36: There was significant improvement in degenerative patient (P = 0.000 to P = 0.012). In traumatic patient, only pain had significant improvement (P = 0.045).
Conclusion: This study showed that the age of the patient should not be the limiting factor for the surgical management of a patient with a degenerative or a traumatic spinal condition.
Keywords: Degenerative spinal condition; old age; spinal surgery; traumatic spinal injury.