Clear information about brain and spine

Articles written for patients: what your diagnosis means, what options exist, and when surgery actually helps.

Spine

Sciatica: symptoms, causes and when it stops being "just pain"

Most sciatica improves without surgery. The difficulty is recognising in time the cases that do not.

Spine

In most low back pain no specific structural cause is identified. And most of it still gets better.

Spine

A slipped vertebra sounds alarming in a report. In practice, many grade I cases never cause trouble.

Brain

In an older adult, a knock that seemed insignificant can cause symptoms six weeks later.

Brain

"Glioma" is not one diagnosis. That single word covers tumours with radically different outlooks.

Spine

A characteristic pattern: walking a distance, having to stop, and being able to continue after sitting for a moment.

Brain

Most blows to the head have no consequences. The problem is knowing which ones do.

Spine

The question is not whether you have a herniation. It is whether that herniation explains your symptoms, and whether time will resolve it.

Brain

The most common brain tumour in adults — and the one whose outlook has changed most in the last decade.

Technique

It is not "laser surgery" and it is not risk-free. It is the same operation, performed through a smaller door.