Oswestry low back disability index of patients after surgery for decompression of nerve roots

Abstract

The objective of the present paper was to investigate patients' outcome after surgery for decompression of nerve roots, disk herniation, and foraminal stenosis, using as the degree of dysfunction 90 days after the surgery. Patients who received surgery in three hospitals were recruited by telephone. Three interviews were conducted, approximately 30,60 and 90 days post-surgery. In each interview the Oswestry Disability Questionnaire was administered. Data were also obtained using the Analogical Visual Scale (AVS) and informationa about the number of past surgeries, presence of neurological signs, use of medication, physiotherapy treatment and absence from work. Ten patients seven men and three women with a mean age of 45 ± 10.9 years participated in the study. The functional index averaged 41 %, 28,4% and 24%, after 30, 60 and 90 days, respectively, with 100% being maximal dysfunction and zero no dysfunction. AVS averaged were; 27,5%, 18,5% and 21,5% over the same period. This unexpected increase in AVS scores after 90 days of surgery was due mainly to strenuous work of two patients, who had history of two surgeries and to a fall by another one, who had only one surgery. The role of physiotherapy was minimized due to the reduced number of patients over time and de great variation of treatment modalities without objective criteria to evaluate progress. Over the brief period of this study, it was observed that while surgery improved performance of daily life activities for most of the appraised patients, they were absent from their works after 90 days of surgery. It is necessary for a longer term follow-up the patients' activities after surgery to get a better estimation of long term
results.