Assessing Quality of Life in Spinal Surgery

Dear Editor, I have read with interest the article by Farzanegan et al. (1). The authors focused on a very important aspect of quality-of-life assessment in lumbar discopathy patients following neurosurgical procedures. In their daily clinical practice, neurosurgeons by and large concentrate only on the presence of neurological deficits (paresis or paralysis) and pain, while ignoring the social aspect of recovery. This is partly due to the nature of work of the operating surgeon and associated time constraints, and partly to the prevailing patterns of clinical care and the belief that further treatment should rest with other medical professionals, mostly rehabilitation specialists.