One-Fifth of Spine Surgery Patients Develop PTSD SymptomsScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2012) — Nearly 20 percent of people who underwent low back fusion surgery developed post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms associated with that surgery, according to a recent Oregon Health & Science University study published in the journal Spine. Share This: 50 See Also: Health & Medicine Today's Healthcare Wounds and Healing Cosmetic Surgery Mind & Brain PTSD Psychiatry Mental Health Reference Scoliosis Hysterectomy Urology Minimally invasive procedure Past studies have noted PTSD symptoms in some trauma, cancer and organ transplant patients. But this is the first study, its authors believe, to monitor for PTSD symptoms in patients undergoing an elective medical procedure. "It is maybe not surprising that significant surgical interventions have psychological as well as physical impacts," said Robert Hart, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon, professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation at OHSU and senior author of the study. "I think it means that we in the medical community need to monitor for these effects in our patients and to manage them when they occur." The study found that the strongest factor in determining whether a spine surgery patient suffered PTSD symptoms after the surgery was whether the patient had a psychiatric disturbance -- depression or anxiety disorders, for example -- before the surgery. But some patients who had no such pre-surgery diagnoses also suffered PTSD symptoms after the spine surgery, the study found. The OHSU study involved 73 of Hart's surgical patients who underwent lumbar spinal fusion surgery, a procedure in which two or more lumbar