Is 20 Years Old Too Young for Spine Surgery?

For most 20-year-olds, surgery isn’t even on the radar. But that doesn’t mean that 20 is too young for surgery. In this article, we are going to discuss spine surgery and patient age. In particular, we will answer the question of whether 20 years old is too young to undergo a minimally invasive keyhole spine procedure.

Age & Spine Surgery

There are many reasons why a patient might require a minimally invasive keyhole spine procedure. But a lot of the time, spinal surgery procedures are used to help treat older patients who have experienced some form of degeneration in the spine. You see, as we age our bodies break down – and the spine is no exception. The spinal vertebrae weaken and the spinal discs begin to thin. When this happens a patient is much more likely to develop a herniated disc and pinched nerve that may require spine surgery.

Spine Surgery Eligibility

That being said, there is no ultimate age cutoff for spine surgery eligibility. Many patients aged 20 and younger have successfully undergone spine surgery and returned to an active life. A younger patient may not have degenerative discs in the spine, but there are plenty of other conditions and injuries that could require spine surgery, such as:

• Injury to the spinal cord
• Hereditary scoliosis
• Other congenital conditions

The good news is that when a young patient has to go through a spinal procedure, they will be able to bounce back and recover even quicker than an elderly patient. A younger patient’s body heals quickly. Couple that with the small incisions and shorter recovery times that most modern minimally invasive keyhole procedures provide and getting back to normal is no problem at all. If you have questions about any of the Inspired Spine surgical procedures (The Inspired OLLIF or The Inspired MIS-DTIF), don’t hesitate to contact us via the form on this site.