Lumbar spine surgery for octogenarians

March 8 was International Women’s Day, and on that day, I performed a slip resurfacing and enlargement of the spinal canal for an 84-year-old woman with lumbar spondylolisthesis and severe spinal stenosis. The operation went well, with only 80 ml of bleeding and an operating time of 1 hour and 35 minutes. The old woman had lumbar pain for nearly 20 years. At first, she only had lumbar pain and felt lumbar pain when she moved more or sat for a long time. Gradually, the back pain gradually worsened, and she felt pain even when she was sleeping. The left lower limb was swollen and painful from the hip to the back of the foot as if a tendon was pulled. The old lady’s partner was bedridden with many diseases, but the back pain and leg pain made it impossible for the old lady to take care of her partner, and she couldn’t even go out to buy some daily necessities for her partner, and she had to walk for half an hour to reach the 200-meter distance. The old man was in great pain and went to several hospitals and was diagnosed with lumbar spondylolisthesis combined with severe spinal stenosis. This disease requires surgery to completely relieve the patient’s pain. However, the doctors who saw him did not use surgery to treat him because he was too old, and only treated him symptomatically through physical therapy and oral medication. In early March, a neighbor of the old man referred her to me, and after careful examination and reading of the old man’s laboratory results, I analyzed that the patient could be treated for lumbar spondylolisthesis and spinal stenosis through a small incision, and accepted the patient for surgery. Today is March 11. When I checked the patient in the morning, the old lady was in good spirits and happily took my hand and said that now her back does not hurt anymore, and that fatal left leg soreness and pain is gone, and she also demonstrated to me that she could lift her left leg very high. I was very pleased to see the good treatment effect of the old man and encouraged him to eat more nutritious food and try to walk on the ground one week after the operation.