What is spinal canal stenosis?
Spinal Canal Stenosis is a condition that causes a narrowing of the bony and disc canal of the vertebrae, the area through which the spinal cord passes at both the cervical and lumbar levels.
According to experts in traumatology, stenosis can lead to spinal cord injury with the consequent transmission deficit and loss of sensitivity and strength in the upper and lower limbs.
In what age group is its appearance most common?
There are people who are born with a fairly narrow spinal canal; however, it is more common for this stenosis to develop over the years, especially after the age of 50.
As already mentioned, this process generally appears after the age of 55 or 60 years and progresses more and more until it almost completely closes the neural canal.
Causes and evolution of spinal stenosis
The causes are generally arthrosis of all the vertebral elements, both of the small posterior joints and of the intervertebral discs. In the development of this osteoarthritis, osteophytes (commonly called “parrot beaks”) are produced, as well as an increase in the size of the articular elements and capsules. Simultaneously, a dehydration of the intervertebral disc is created with its crushing and protrusion into the medullary canal.
All these phenomena cause a deformity in the alignment of the spine (lumbar) and the origin of the so-called Degenerative Scoliosis. This scoliosis may occur in some cases, but a spondylolisthesis, i.e. a forward slippage of a vertebra in relation to other vertebrae, may also occur. In both cases there is still a further narrowing of the spinal canal, an entrapment of the spinal cord and / or the nerves coming from it.
The coincidence more or less in time of all these phenomena that are developing little by little makes the spinal canal more and more closed. In particular, the foramina, which are the orifices through which the nerves coming from the spinal cord exit to the outside, are narrowed, thus constituting Acquired or Degenerative Spinal Canal Stenosis.