cervical spine problems

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   Our user asked: "I have been diagnosed as having bulging discs from levels 4 - 7, both to the left and right. I also have bone spurs with some spinal cord compression (minimal) Can you tell me if this is greater than average degenerative changes for a woman who is 55 years old?"

Ask a PT Response: "This was a very interesting question. I have seen patients both younger and older than yourself who have had conditions similiar to yours, so I was unsure of the answer. After doing a literature review I came acrossed a published study "Aging of the Cervical Spine in Healthy Volunteers: A 10 Year Longitudinal Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study" by Okada et al. which may answer your question. In their study they sampled 229 individuals with mean age of 39 (plus and minus 15 years) and examined a MRI of their spine 10 years ago with one currently and found that progression of degeneration of cervical spine on MRI was frequently observed during 10 year period, with development of symptoms in 34% of subjects. I guess to answer your question, from this study it wouldn't be uncommon to have these cervical degenerative changes occur in about 1/3 of the population in the aforementioned age group. I hope this helps and thanks for using CyberPT."

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Ask a PT Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: Jul 07 2008 Status: Offline Points: 954	Post Options Post Reply Quote Ask a PT Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: cervical spine problems Posted: Aug 27 2009 at 2:01pm
	Our user asked: "I have been diagnosed as having bulging discs from levels 4 - 7, both to the left and right. I also have bone spurs with some spinal cord compression (minimal) Can you tell me if this is greater than average degenerative changes for a woman who is 55 years old?" Ask a PT Response: "This was a very interesting question. I have seen patients both younger and older than yourself who have had conditions similiar to yours, so I was unsure of the answer. After doing a literature review I came acrossed a published study "Aging of the Cervical Spine in Healthy Volunteers: A 10 Year Longitudinal Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study" by Okada et al. which may answer your question. In their study they sampled 229 individuals with mean age of 39 (plus and minus 15 years) and examined a MRI of their spine 10 years ago with one currently and found that progression of degeneration of cervical spine on MRI was frequently observed during 10 year period, with development of symptoms in 34% of subjects. I guess to answer your question, from this study it wouldn't be uncommon to have these cervical degenerative changes occur in about 1/3 of the population in the aforementioned age group. I hope this helps and thanks for using CyberPT."

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