Feinberg
Northwestern Medicine | Northwestern University | Faculty Profiles

News Center

  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
  • Press Releases
  • Media Coverage
  • Podcasts
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Menu
  • Categories
    • Campus News
    • Disease Discoveries
    • Clinical Breakthroughs
    • Education News
    • Scientific Advances
  • Press Releases
  • Media Coverage
  • Podcasts
  • Editor’s Picks
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Cancer
    • Neurology and Neuroscience
    • Aging and Longevity
    • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • News Archives
  • About Us
    • Media Contact
    • Share Your News
    • News Feeds
    • Social Media
    • Contact Us
Home » Tracking Physical Activity and Recovery from Spine Surgery
Clinical Breakthroughs

Tracking Physical Activity and Recovery from Spine Surgery

By Nora DunneJan 15, 2015
Share
Facebook Twitter Email
Zachary Smith, MD, ’12 GME, assistant professor in Neurological Surgery, is conducting a study that monitors patient physical activity before and after minimally invasive spine surgery.

When am I going to recover? It’s a common question from patients, yet a difficult one for physicians to answer. In an effort to better predict recovery over time for patients who undergo spine surgery, Northwestern Medicine investigators are monitoring physical activity using Fitbit trackers in an ongoing study.

During the four weeks before a surgery and for six months afterward, the Fitbits will capture personal data on a patient’s steps and activity levels.

“An activity monitor allows us to have an objective, numerically exact and continuous measure of activity. This can show exactly how much function a patient has regained and, critically, when and if it occurs during the recovery period,” said Zachary Smith, MD, ’12 GME, assistant professor in Neurological Surgery and a principal investigator of the study. “This may allow us to predict when a patient will be back to 50 percent activity, 100 percent activity or even 200 percent activity in the future.”

Dr. Smith and colleagues have started enrolling patients and accumulating data, with promising preliminary results.

“We’ve already seen how surgery changes activity in our first patients,” he said. “It appears that almost all patients go through a four- to six-week period where their activity is decreased. Just over a month out from many of the surgeries, they get back to their pre-operative level. Then they slowly continue to climb to new levels of activity that they could never have reached before.”

The current study focuses on minimally invasive spine surgeries for degenerative disease and deformity, such as correcting scoliosis, but Dr. Smith plans to apply this physical activity monitoring approach to all spine operations in the future.

“We hope to integrate this into our practice so that it becomes a universal and accepted means of evaluating patients and evaluating our outcomes,” he said. “Most importantly, we hope to make patients more involved in their own self-evaluation, recovery and spinal health. I strongly believe that a motivated patient will get better results. Working hand-in-hand with our patients to improve our outcomes will only make us more effective.”

Feinberg investigators are conducting the study in collaboration with researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, and New York University. All three sites are funded by the International Spine Study Group, with additional support for Dr. Smith’s team provided by the Department of Neurosurgery.

If you are interested in participating in research at Northwestern University, please call the NU Study line at 1-855-NU-STUDY. Or get connected by visiting https://registar-prod.nubic.northwestern.edu to sign up for Northwestern’s Research Registry.

Neurology and Neuroscience Research Surgery
Share. Facebook Twitter Email

Related Posts

Largest cell map of human lung reveals insights into disease

Jun 8, 2023

Biological Aging Increases Risk of Depression, Anxiety in Adults 

Jun 7, 2023

Developing New Nanoparticle Treatments for Brain Tumors

Jun 6, 2023

Comments are closed.

Latest News

Largest cell map of human lung reveals insights into disease

Jun 8, 2023

McNally Honored with Walder Award

Jun 8, 2023

Biological Aging Increases Risk of Depression, Anxiety in Adults 

Jun 7, 2023

Developing New Nanoparticle Treatments for Brain Tumors

Jun 6, 2023

Newly Discovered Mechanisms Increase Chemotherapy Resistance in Breast Cancer 

Jun 5, 2023
  • News Center Home
  • Categories
  • Press Release
  • Media Coverage
  • Editor’s Picks
  • News Archives
  • About Us
Flickr Photos
ANB05555
ANB08990
ANB09022
ANB09063
ANB09008
ANB08781
ANB08971
ANB09000
ANB08992
ANB09015
ANB09058
ANB09048

Northwestern University logo

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

RSS Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Flickr YouTube Instagram
Copyright © 2023 Northwestern University
  • Contact Northwestern University
  • Disclaimer
  • Campus Emergency Information
  • Policy Statements

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.