A new study published in Spine examines the recovery time for adults undergoing spinal deformity surgery.
The study included 149 patients who underwent treatment for scoliosis and tracked those patients for two years. The patients were either young — 18 years to 45 years; middle aged — 46 years to 64 years; or elderly — 65 years or older. The researchers found:
1. All the groups reported significant improvements two years after treatment for all health-related quality of life measures compared with the baseline, except for MCS, ODI and SRS activity for the young group.
2. The normalized integrated health state HRQOL was worse for the young patients than the elderly patients with the ODI, PCS, MCS and SRS activity scores, pain and total during the two year recovery period.
3. The MILD ODI group — scores zero to 30 — reported significantly worse integrated health state values two years after surgery when compared with the HIGH group — scores of 50 or higher — in all HRQOL measures except SRS appearance and satisfaction.
4. The researchers predicted the recovery process would be more difficult for older patients, but found the "recovery process was significantly better for elderly patients than young patients."
5. The recovery process was also better for patients with high disability.