Hi I'm Dr Tony Mork endoscopic spine specialist. Today I'd like to talk about spondylolisthesis and although there are five types of spondylosis as described by Newman and McNabb, I'd like to talk about the most common one I get to see in my practice which is Degenerative Spondylolisthesis. Well first off, what a Spondylolisthesis? “Spondylo” means spine and listhesis means to slip.
So there's some slipping of one vertebrae on the other, in this case usually in the elderly population although not always, and six times more commonly at the L4-5 and is the facets joints. As the joints of the facets narrow the vertebrae can actually slip forward. So let's take a look on this model about what I'm trying to explain. Well in this model here we can see that we're looking at the spine from the back and this is a Facet Joint. here if I turn that a little bit obleakly you see that normally there’d be a joint here with several millimeters of cartilage between the 2 facet joints. So If I take them apart you can see that bone from the facet joints are going to meet. Each of the joints are covered by cartilage and if a product if there is wear and tear in the cartilage is gone you can see that the actual vertebrate could slip forward. So in the picture here what I've drawn is the facet joints in the back wearing out and as a result this vertebrate, let's just say four five can slip forward as a result the disc oftentimes will narrow. The Joint will become arthritic lose its joint space and the body in response to this whole thing will often times try to form osteophytes and calcify spinal ligaments in order to reduce the motion particularly at the level where the most motion occurs which is L4-5...
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I'm Dr. Tony Mork and I run an Endoscopic Spine Surgery practice in Irvine, California and Naples, FL. I avoid a fusion when possible (which is most situations) and provide treatments that actually address the pain without taking an invasive approach.
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