A Prospective Study of Cervical and Lumbar Patients
Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation
January 1999 Volume 80 Number 1
Brian W Nelson MD. David M Carpenter MS. Thomas E Dreisinger PhD.
Michelle Mitchell PTA. Charles E Kelly MD. Joseph A Wegner MD.
Study Outcomes & Clinical Relevance:
Forty-six of the 60 participants completed the program. At an average of 16 months after completion 38 patients were available for follow-up while 8 patients could not be located or contacted. Of these 38 patients only 3 required surgery after completing the program.
In other words, patients who were informed they required back or neck surgery had a 92% chance of avoiding surgery with aggressive spinal strengthening on the MedX Medical Machines.
Can Exercise Therapy Improve the Outcome of Microdiscectomy?
Spine
June 2000 Volume 15 Number 25
Dolan P Greenfield, K Nelson, RJ Nelson IW
Department of Anatomy, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
Study Outcomes & Clinical Relevance:
A 4 week postoperative exercise program can improve pain disability and spinal function in patients who undergo microdiscectomy. A brief course of active based therapy provided long-term (up to 1 year) benefits to patients following microdiscectomy. These exercise induced benefits augmented the outcomes provided by surgery. The authors expound on the long-term deconditioning that likely precedes surgery. A follow-up study should thus include a presurgical exercise group. If properly applied, aggressive spinal strengthening performed presurgically may have not only improved surgical outcomes, but helped many patients avoid surgery altogether – as previous research has suggested.
