When it comes to spine surgery, 99% of the patients are afraid their procedure will go wrong. What is even worse, the patients’ parents are usually scared to death. All this puts a lot of pressure on the surgeon.
Robotic spine surgery makes these procedures far safer. Plus, it is a fantastic tool in the hands of a deformity surgeon. Why? Because even the most skilled surgeon might have trouble from time to time. Especially when placing screws to correct spinal deformities.
The Benefits of Robotic Surgery
In most cases, robotic surgery is the combination of two different technologies. Think of it as a robotic surgeon that uses a 3D navigation system. A common misconception is that the robot performs the surgery. But that is far from the truth.
The robotic guidance system increases surgical predictability. In other words, it makes the risk of spinal injury as minimal as possible. You can visit adrspine.com for more information on this technology.
Better Safety
In essence, a robot is only a tool that assists the surgeon. It helps place instrumentation into hard-to-reach areas more efficiently and more safely. Thanks to this technology, large incisions are no more necessary as well.
High Precision
Smaller incisions mean the procedure is minimally invasive. In other words, during the recovery stage, the patient will have less pain to deal with. Most patients get mobilized a lot more quickly, too.
Fast Recovery
As robotics evolves, it becomes more useful in the operating room. And without a doubt, better robots will help speed up the recovery even more. But the current models are already amazing. They compute the image of the patient’s spine or body part and let the surgeon program it to do just what it needs to do without error.
How Is Robotic Surgery Performed?
As mentioned, the surgeon is in full control of the robot the whole time. The current set-up involves:
- A robotic arm that makes incisions and places the instrumentation in the patient’s body with high accuracy
- Cameras to visually follow every step of the procedure
- Extra devices. Sometimes, the system has one or more control sticks.
- Multiple screens for monitoring and control purposes
For starters, the robotic arm eliminates the tremor issue typical of a surgeon’s hand. Thanks to its navigation system, the steady robotic arm goes through the perfect trajectory planned by the surgeon.
Once the arm is in position, the system will take care of the patient’s safety at any time. It can even sense if the surgeon is leaning on the robot arm too much. (For clarity, leaning could cause the arm to be off by as little as one millimeter, but the system will not allow such inaccuracy.)
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