Mark Lyerly, MD, a neurosurgeon who has performed more than 6,000 procedures on patients 55 years and older, joined Novant Health Brain & Spine Surgery in High Point, N.C. in June.
Dr. Lyerly primarily operates on older patients, Novant Health said in a July 27 feature. More than 2,400 of his procedures have been done on patients 70 years and older. Many of those patients go home the same day with positive outcomes.
"Some doctors say that just because Patient X is 80 years old, they don’t want to operate," he said in the feature. "But, Patient X might (have the physical fitness) of a 60-year-old. So, age isn’t the best delimiter. I've seen a lot of older people who are busy all day long, and some of them still work. They’ve got good muscle tone. They have well-controlled chronic conditions – maybe a little hypertension – but there's no need for those people to be relegated to pain and less activity if something can be done with a reasonably low risk rate."