While traditional spinal fusion surgery is considered to be an extensive procedure, requiring general anesthesia and a hospital stay, Awake Spinal Fusion is a minimally invasive procedure. Instead of a lengthy hospital stay, you’re up and about in just a few hours.
With Awake Spinal Fusion, we begin with a minimally invasive procedure.
Minimally invasive spine surgery involves making a small incision (approximately one – two inches) in the skin. This means that the incision in your skin is considerably smaller than traditional spine surgery. The benefits of minimally invasive spine surgery are faster healing times, greatly reduced postoperative pain, less muscle injury, and a better cosmetic outcome compared to the traditional spinal fusion procedure.
With Awake Spinal Fusion, we can avoid the use of general anesthesia, relying instead on highly effective regional anesthetic techniques.
Since we don’t use general anesthesia, Awake Spinal Fusion eliminates a number of disadvantages associated with traditional spine surgery. With the Awake Spinal Fusion procedure, you’ll experience:
Awake Spinal Fusion allows patients to awaken sooner with significantly fewer side effects. In most cases, patients have recovered sufficiently to ambulate a few hours after surgery.