GOLFERS PLAY BETTER AFTER SPINE FUSION (Orthopedics this Week)
Golfers Play Same or BETTER After Spinal Fusion
While you won’t want to undergo surgery just to improve your golf swing, new research from Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush (MOR) has filled a void in the golf-related spine literature. Dr. Frank Phillips, Section Head of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery and Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Rush, tells OTW about the first study examining outcomes of lumbar fusion in golfers. “There is no data in the literature that discusses golf and spine fusion surgery; there is no clinical data at all regarding return to play. And yet patients commonly ask their surgeon, ‘When am I going to be back on the golf course?’
“My colleagues and I examined data from one and two-level lumbar fusions I performed over a two year period. Our goals were to determine the ability of golfers to return to play and to find out what factors might predict their return to golf. Patients completed questionnaires asking if they had played golf before or after surgery, and inquiring about the factors that led them to decide to undergo the procedure, what limited them in terms of swing before surgery, when they returned to practice, etc.”
“A full 75% of golfers will be able to play the same amount or more following fusion surgery. Within a year after surgery, 65% of patients had returned to practice and 52% had resumed on course play. Of those who did not return to the sport, 31% attributed it to ongoing back or leg pain. Pre-operatively, 80% of participants said that lumbar pain affected them while playing golf; 50% said that their inability to play golf was a reason they considered surgery.”
“We found that 80% of golfers maintained or improved their handicap post-operatively. After surgery, 50% of golfers stated their distance was negatively affected; 23% indicated that their consistency decreased; only 9% said that their accuracy diminished. It is great to have this data because much of the public believes that if you have a lumbar fusion then you will not be able to move well or have the same swing as you did before surgery.”
“The real question for me is, ‘How minimally invasive spine (MIS) fusion will affect these outcomes?’ At this point, 95% of my one- and two-level fusion surgeries are MIS. I plan to undertake a prospective study to study how quickly and effectively golfers return to play after MIS fusion surgery. My suspicion is that the reduced collateral tissue damage with MIS surgery would expedite return to golf.