Hugo Poggio can't explain how Dr. Kenneth Light repaired his aching back at the San Francisco Spine Center. "I can tell you," the 75 year old San Franciscan chirps, "I feel wonderful now. I can do shoulder stands now. I can walk, bend, stand. I exercise regularly." And Poggio can again climb up a ladder to trim the apple trees on his spread in Sebastopol.
He was on a ladder trying to cut a limb from one of his trees about three years ago when he fell. "I lay there. Couldn't move," Poggio remembers. "My wife called 911. The ambulance came. Drove me all the way back to The City to my hospital, St. Francis Memorial. My doctor brought in Dr. Light."
Light, co-founder and co-director with Dr. Roger Minkow of the San Francisco Spine Center at the hospital, remembers fitting Poggio with a new vertebra. "Of course," says Poggio, "I'm very careful now when I'm on a ladder."
After undergoing surgery by Light at the Spine Center, "I can shop till I drop," says 79 year old Kathryn Theobold of Rossmoor. "I used to have to go to the supermarket in a wheelchair. I was afraid of an operation. Everybody I know advised me not to do it. It was risky and I knew people who had bad results. I went to four orthopedic surgeons before I went to Dr. Light."
When she was younger, Theobold liked to dance. "Loved to tango." Now? "The operation didn't help. My husband says I have two left feet," she said and laughed. "But my life is completely different now. I seem to be doing too much, which is better than barely being able to get around before I had my surgery in 1993."
Although Theobold thinks her spine trouble may have been the delayed aftermath of injuries to her back when was in her teens, and a number of whiplashes suffered in auto accidents, Light say our spines have a crucial tendency to wear as we get older.
"Back pain affects about 90 percent of older people," Light says. "People talk about 'my back going out.' Women from 70-90 develop angulation, what people call the 'dowager's hump' in the thoracic spine. It's less common in men."
"Most damage," he emphasizes, "comes from poor posture. If you stand up straight, that will reduce the stress on your spine. Keep your head high, your shoulders back and your stomach muscles tight. Avoid standing or sitting in one place for a long time."
The best advice he offers elders is to keep happy and enjoy yourself. And use common sense, "If you're over 40, get a friend to help you with a home improvement project. Get help on a gardening project, too." Exercise? "Walking and swimming are good. Yoga is good for stretching, and it's not overly taxing."
Over 80 million Americans suffer from back pain, Light says, but only one in 10,000 actually need surgery. At the Spine Center, he says, "We're treating people, not MRI scans." The oldest patient Light operated on was a 93 year old man.
1n 1984, Light studied the Simmons Keystone Technique at the SUNY-Buffalo with Dr. Edward Simmons, the spine surgeon who invented the technique. It includes osteotomy of the spine to correct the spinal deformity known technically as ankylosing spondylitis. The Keystone Technique decompresses and stabilizes the cervical spine, allowing the surgeon to remove tumors and fracture fragments, and removal of painful disk herniation. With a 90 percent success rate, most patients are ambulatory the day after treatment. |
