Patients living with dementia experience a higher hazard for adverse events related to elective lumbar spine surgery, according to a recent study.
“Clinical outcomes following elective lumbar spine surgery in patients living with dementia” was named as the 2025 Outstanding Paper Award winner by The Spine Journal, according to a Nov. 14 news release from the North American Spine Society.
The study examined more than 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries to assess outcomes following elective lumbar spine surgery and found that patients with dementia were more likely to suffer adverse events including mortality and intensive postoperative interventions compared to patients without dementia.
Andrew Schoenfeld, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston was senior author of the paper.
