How to deal with the elderly with severe back and leg pain

2015-08-17

How to deal with the elderly with severe back and leg pain

Case Sharing

Ms. Tang (85 years old) has suffered from low back and leg pain for many years. Because her lumbar spine has severely degenerated, the spinal canal narrowed and compressed the spinal nerve roots and spinal cord (called spinal stenosis). Will be very painful and difficult. Recently, low back pain has increased, as well as foot weakness, numbness, and rooting. This has not only affected her daily life but also her mood. Emotional fluctuations have also affected family anxiety. Recently, the patient has experienced depression and insomnia symptoms. The family members are very worried that her condition will continue to worsen. Because of her old age,  she does not want her to take the risk of surgery, she hopes that the author’s COX disc decompression manipulation can relieve her back and leg pain. However, even if Ms. Tang’shas taken anti-inflammatory painkillers, the pain cannot be reduced. Considering that this will increase the difficulty of the treatment and hinder the progress of the treatment, after discussing with the patient and his family, the author urges the best way to distinguish. The main purpose is to relieve Ms. Tang’s back and leg pain, and then cooperate with COX decompression manipulation so that the patient’s low back can continue to receive appropriate treatment.

The author referred the patient to a neurosurgeon for a procedure called “selective foraminal nerve root block", which is an injection procedure in which the doctor injects local anesthetics and steroids on the nerve roots under the guidance of X-rays. The purpose is to local anesthetize the affected nerve roots and greatly reduce the patient’s back pain. After the injection, the patient’s foot pain is greatly improved (#), and conservative treatment can be continued. Both the patient and family members feel very happy, it turns out that between conservative treatment and surgical treatment, there is a choice of a minimal invasive treatment.

Structure of the spine

Our spine is made up of multiple movable spinal bones, allowing the body to stand, bend, and turn, and the spine can also protect our spinal cord. In the middle of each spine, there is a spinal canal. The spinal cord is in this spinal canal to help us transmit information. When the information from the brain passes through the spinal cord to the spinal nerves, it leads to various parts of the body.

Spinal Stenosis

Spinal Stenosis is one of the causes of sciatica. It usually occurs in the elderly and is a degenerative pathology. In fact, spinal stenosis refers to the narrowing of spinal ducts, nerve root ducts, hypertrophy and thickening of the facet joints of the spine, degeneration of spinal ligaments and proliferation of bone spurs, which compress the spinal nerves wrapped in the ducts and produce pain.

脊椎管道狹窄                      正常脊椎管道

Spinal Stenosis can occur in any spine, but the most common occurrence is in the low back. Generally, elderly people have spinal stenosis, however, not every elder suffering from spine stenosis will have pain unless it is pressed on the nerve, then pain will occur.

Symptoms

At first, the patient will only feel tightness and soreness in the buttocks and upper legs, but after a period of time, the soreness will spread to the lower limbs, and after a period of time, symptoms of nerve compression will appear, including acupuncture pain from the low back extending to the hips and feet. The most common is that patients are particularly painful when walking and standing. They are often misdiagnosed as vascular problems. Patients with spinal stenosis tend to bend their bodies slightly, which will relieve the pain in the feet and low back.

Treatment

This symptom was diagnosed from X-ray, magnetic resonance, and detailed examination. Since most of this symptom is affected by old age bone degeneration, the purpose of treatment can only be to relieve the symptoms, relieve the patient's pain, and increase the patient's physical activity.

Data title: Chiropractor Dr. Matty Wong

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(#) This is an individual case, and the actual results vary from person to person.