Spine Treatment

Our multidisciplinary team has designed diagnostic and treatment protocols and innovative new clinical programs to provide every patient safe, effective and personalized spine treatment.

Medical spine

Spine Clinic

Henry Ford’s spine specialists have long focused on accurate diagnosis of spinal conditions and continually improving treatment options for patients with spinal disease. Your patient’s spine treatment starts with a thorough diagnostic process to help us gather information about the condition and determine the underlying cause. Depending on the individual case and any testing that has already been completed, this may include:

• Bone scans to measure bone density
• Discogram to see inside a spinal disc
• MRI, CT or X-ray
• Myelogram to help us identify sources of pressure to the spinal cord or nerve roots
• Behavioral health and neuropsychological testing
• Blood work to potentially locate a medical source for spine pain
• Electrodiagnostic studies, including NcV, EMG, MMG and SSEP
• Motion analysis at our specialized lab

Nonsurgical spine treatment

Nonsurgical care is our primary goal for our patients, and we offer a number of spine treatments, including physical therapy and exercise programs, integrative and alternative medicine (including acupuncture, chiropractic care, yoga and massage therapy), pain medication management, spine pain therapy through injections and other approaches, and back braces. If your patient’s condition doesn’t respond well to these options, we offer more advanced surgical spine treatments, including minimally invasive procedures.

Spine Prehab

Our innovative, presurgical Spine Prehab program is designed to prepare patients for their surgical experience, inpatient stay and postsurgical spine therapy. One key element we explore is increasing a patient’s level of aerobic activity and strengthening core muscles prior to spine surgery. This can help to improve surgical outcomes by decreasing pain, improving mobility and helping your patients get back to their normal routines faster. 

Surgical spine

When surgery is necessary, our spine specialists match your patient’s symptoms and medical conditions with procedures that provide the best chance at healing and recovery. We treat spine conditions with the most advanced surgical technology and techniques.

Minimally invasive spine procedures

Our spine surgeons were the first in Michigan to provide minimally invasive spine surgery for a wide range of spinal conditions, from degenerative spine disorders to more involved spinal pathology, spinal trauma and spinal tumors. These procedures are safer than open surgery and allow your patient to recover faster, cause less pain and scarring and typically require shorter or no hospital stays. We’re able to provide a wide range of minimally invasive spine procedures because of minimal access spine technology, also known as MAST. These procedures include:

• Cervical discectomy
• Corpectomy
• Interbody fusion
• Kyphoplasty
• Laminoplasty
• Laminotomy/foraminotomy
• Spinal cord stimulation and other interventional pain procedures
• Spinal fusion

We use robotic spine procedures for spine pain therapy in cases of low back pain. Robotic spine surgical equipment gives our surgeons better precision and control with 3-D views during surgery.

Innovative designs like the ExcelciusGPS^TM are revolutionizing minimally invasive spine surgery and optimizing patient care by combining the benefits of navigation and robotics into one technology. An especially valuable advantage of ExcelciusGPS is that it allows our surgeons to make even safer, more consistent and smaller incisions, and this can promote healing and lessen scarring.

Spine oncology

In addition to chemotherapy, we provide a range of treatment options for spinal tumors and spinal cord tumors, including:

• Minimally invasive surgery: Our neurosurgery team was the first in Michigan and second in the world to complete a spinal laser interstitial thermal therapy (SLITT) procedure. This groundbreaking treatment destroys cancer cells that are adjacent to the spine without the need for open surgery. SLITT is a minimally invasive procedure that allows a patient to recover within days, instead of the months of recovery that are necessary for open surgery.
• Radiosurgery: Henry Ford’s multidisciplinary spine team was the first in the world to use radiosurgery for spine cancer and remains a global leader in stereotactic treatment for cancer of the spine and brain. Radiosurgery for spine cancer has been proven to help control the tumor, reduce pain and maintain functional status.