🔎 What is neurosurgery?
Neurosurgery is a discipline which treats surgical pathologies of central and peripheral neurological tissues, including surgery of the brain, the cerebellum, the spinal cord, the meninges and the nerves.
The neurological damage being treated may have occurred previously or may be of low intensity (pain, abnormal gait or behaviour) but may also be acute or intense (convulsions, abrupt paralysis). Neurological problems may originate from various sources:
- congenital (e.g. deformations),
- trauma (e.g.: fractures, hernias..),
- metabolic (e.g. intoxications, vascular...),
- degenerative,
- caused by a tumour...
Neurological tissues struggle to tolerate intense or extended onslaughts and some pathologies therefore require urgent surgical treatment.
The diagnostic process for a neurological complaint must therefore follow different steps :
- Confirm that the problem is neurological
- Locate the problem within the neurological system
- Estimate the severity and scope of the neurological lesions
- Determine the cause and/or the pathological process
- Estimate the prognosis based on the medical or surgical management.
Les tissus neurologiques tolèrent difficilement une agression tant d’un point de vue de l’intensité que de la durée et certaines pathologies nécessitent donc un traitement chirurgical d’urgence.
Complementary examinations are essential to respond to questions concerning localisation, severity and cause. The most frequently occurring examinations are imaging examinations (radiography / myelography, scanner or IRM), the study of the cerebrospinal fluid, the study of electrical signals (electromyography or electroneurography), biopsies...
The results of these complementary examinations will allow the most appropriate treatment to be evaluated, whether medical or surgical.