A spine specialist is a health professional who focuses mainly on treating spine conditions. Common specialists include chiropractors, physiatrists, physical therapists, orthopaedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, pain management physicians, anesthesiologists, and many rheumatologists and neurologists. Selection of the most appropriate type of health professional—or team of professionals—largely depends on the nature, severity, and duration of a patient’s symptoms.
Now it may be a difficult thing to find out the best spine specialist, but the spine specialist could be either:
- Neurosurgeon or,
- Orthopaedic spine surgeon
A neurosurgeon is the type of doctor that specialises in neurology. The students who are preparing to enter into the medical industry in the United States appear for USMLE where they prepare notes for neurology. If you are one of then you can check this cheat sheet for all notes on Neurology.
Neurology is a branch of medicine dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Neurology deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the central and peripheral nervous system
And an orthopaedic surgeon is one who specialises in orthopaedics. It is the branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system. Orthopaedic surgeons use both surgical and nonsurgical means to treat musculoskeletal trauma, spine diseases, sports injuries, degenerative diseases, infections, tumours, and congenital disorders.
So with these, we could collect that choosing a neurosurgeon or an orthopaedic spine surgeon would probably depend on the nature of the disease or discomfort. But, both the type of doctors perform spine related problems. Now let us learn some more about the spine related problems.
A spinal cord injury is a damage to the spinal cord. It’s an extremely serious type of physical trauma that’s likely to have a lasting and significant impact on most aspects of daily life. The spinal cord is a bundle of nerves and other tissue that the vertebrae of the spine contains and protects. The vertebrae are the bones stacked on top of each other that make up the spine. The spine contains many nerves, and extends from the brain’s base down the back, ending close to the buttocks.
It is responsible for sending messages from the brain to all parts of the body. It also sends messages from the body to the brain. We are able to perceive pain and move our limbs because of messages sent through the spinal cord.
A spinal cord injury is often the result of an unpredictable accident or violent event. The following can all result in damage to the spinal cord:
- a violent attack such as a stabbing or a gunshot
- diving into water that’s too shallow and hitting the bottom
- trauma during a car accident (specifical trauma to the face, head and neck region, back, or chest area)
- falling from a significant height
- head or spinal injuries during sporting events
- electrical accidents
- severe twisting of the middle portion of the torso
Now that you know the reasons leading to a spinal injury and the doctor needed to be consulted during such times, I hope this article proves of some importance to all the needy out there. Also, to have more information you could take help of the internet and find out the top 10 spine surgeons.
