Watch the video below to hear Dr. Herzog explain cervical myelopathy.

Prefer to read? Check out the video transcript below. Or, read more about cervical myelopathy.

What Is Cervical Myelopathy?

Cervical myelopathy is a condition where the spinal cord, traveling through the neck is compressed and can present with symptoms such as imbalance, hand clumsiness, or gait disturbance.

What are the Symptoms?

Patients often present gradually, however a small percentage of patients, about 15%, may present after a trauma such as a fall. Under extreme conditions, cervical spinal cord compression in myelopathy can lead to debilitating loss of ambulation and the need for a wheelchair.

Treatments for Cervical Myelopathy

Patients with mild myelopathy that do not have high risk activities can be observed. Patients with more moderate to severe symptoms of myelopathy often require urgent surgery or relatively urgent surgery and patients who have at risk activities such as hiking or climbing or high velocity motor sports probably benefit from earlier intervention. Decompression of the spinal cord has been shown to improve patients’ results and stabilize this condition from its usual progression.

Problems To Watch Out For

One thing to be aware of is that if you have hand clumsiness, gait imbalance, or problems with your bowel and bladder that you may have a problem with your spinal cord, without neck or arm pain. The results of surgery show that we can stop the progression of this disorder in most people, which is important, and, a more recent study showed that about 70% of people who have cervical myelopathy actually have neurologic improvement after surgery.