The Role of Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgical Procedures in the Elderly Patient: An Analysis of 49 Patients Between 75 and 95 Years of Age

Warhurst, Michael; Hartman, Jason; Granville, Michelle; Jacobson, Robert E

doi:10.7759/cureus.7180

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 30 publications

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“…Patient demand for cutting edge surgical techniques has pushed spine surgeons towards more appealing approaches, including minimally invasive surgery, robotic surgery, etc. This draw for technical excellence has resulted in lower postoperative morbidity, without sacrificing efficacy [ 23 - 25 ]. PROs have historically served as markers of surgical effect on a patient’s quality of life [ 26 , 27 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patient Participation With a Mobile Phone Application for Objective Activity Assessment Before and After Spinal Fusion

Sprau

Basil

Borowsky

et al. 2020

Cureus

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Background Evolution within spine surgery is driven by a surgeon's desire for expertise and significant improvement in their patients' quality of life. As surgeons move away from using subjective patient-reported outcome (PRO) surveys, there must be an alternative objective metric in its place. Modern iPhone (Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA) technology can be used to capture daily activity in a simple, non-user biased manner. These health data can be used to analyze objective functional status in conjunction with PRO surveys to measure surgical outcomes. Methods Patients who underwent an awake transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) between 2014 and 2018 at our institution were identified. Patients were consented and instructed to download the application "QS Access" (Quantified Self Labs, San Francisco, CA). Following data collection, we analyzed the demographic information of patients who were reached to gauge participation and feasibility of data exportation. Results A total of 177 patients who underwent an awake TLIF at our institution were contacted. Of those who answered, 41 (44.6%) agreed to participate and 51 (55.4%) declined to participate. When comparing those who either participated or declined, there were no significant differences in age (p=0.145), sex (p=0.589), or ethnicity (p=0.686). Conclusion Our pilot study examined the patient participation in the novel usage of Apple "Health" data, queried from "QS Access" (Quantified Self Labs), to objectively measure relative patient functional status surrounding spinal fusion. We demonstrated that a smartphone-based application was mostly well received by our patient cohort and has the potential to be used as an objective operative metric moving forward.

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