Treatment methods
It is also possible that the spinal column cannot be restored to its original shape despite therapy and malpositions occur. This can result in incorrect loading, which can lead to chronic pain or damage other surrounding vertebrae in the long term due to the disproportionate load. Another aspect of the healing of vertebral fractures is the type of therapy.
With conservative therapy, patients usually attend a back school. They are hospitalized for the first 2-4 weeks, after which they receive further outpatient treatment. The further healing depends on the location of the vertebral fracture.
Fractures between the thoracic and lumbar spine are usually treated on an outpatient basis with a corset for 6-8 weeks. On the other hand, patients with fractures of the cervical spine have to wear a cervical support for another 6-12 weeks for healing. The course of healing is slightly different for surgical treatment methods.
With minimally invasive procedures such as vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty and endoscopy, healing is fastest and relieves the patient immediately. This is because the spinal column can be directly loaded after the operation. In addition, the patient only has to stay in the clinic for a few days, special rehabilitation is not required, and pain and blood loss are very low.
Invasive surgical methods, on the other hand, require short-term bed rest of a few days and usually the wearing of a corset, plus rehabilitation lasting several weeks. With invasive procedures, healing takes about 6-9 months. In addition to this, however, there is also the question of whether the operation went without complications or whether additional structures were injured.
Another factor is the severity of the injury. The classification of the severity of the injury and the resulting degree of disability plays a role here. The following table gives a short overview, the abbreviation GdB is the degree of disability.From the age of 20, one speaks of a degree of disability, which goes up to 100 at most.
The higher the percentage, the more severe the impairment. Starting from 50 GdB it concerns a heavy handicap. From this, the most probable outcome can be concluded. Degree of severity: (GdB)
- Compression fractures with spinous process fractures (<10)
- Vertebral fracture with an axial deviation below (10-20)
- Vertebral fracture with axial deviation over 15 degrees (20-30)
- Post-trauma unstable mobile segment together with radicular symptoms (30-50)
- Incomplete paraplegia (30-100)
- Complete paraplegia (100)
