Chronic limb stiffness or spasm of the limbs and body arises from several diseases, including:
- Cerebral Palsy
- Spinal cord injuries (Myelopathy)
- brain and brain stem injuries, and multiple sclerosis
- Cerebral infarctions, infections of the spinal cord and brain
When chronic spasm of the limbs and body occurs, the patient finds it difficult to move, walk, and balance, and feels permanent muscle pain, especially when moving. The patient may initially respond to some oral treatments such as muscle relaxants, lovin pills, and Botox injections for the affected muscles, but they become ineffective because the amount of treatment that reaches the spinal cord area responsible for stiffness of the limbs is very small and most of the treatment is distributed by blood throughout the body without Its benefits, which also cause side effects, including dizziness, nausea and fatigue.
What is the Baclofen Pump?
The idea arose as a result of the occurrence of side effects of oral treatment, and to avoid them, it is to inject the spinal fluid around the spinal cord with treatment in a small and effective quantity without the treatment going to the rest of the body, as happens when it is taken orally. The pump is implanted surgically under general anesthesia, where we implant a tube inside the meningeal cover of the spinal cord from the lower back or the upper thoracic vertebrae area and connect the tube to a wound under the skin of the abdomen where we implant the pump, which is about 8 cm in diameter and 2.5 cm thick, and connect it to the pump.
The pump is a tank of liquid baclofen, and it contains a pumping device that is controlled by an electronic device that can be programmed from the outside (remote control) to control the amount of the therapeutic substance that is pumped and reaches the spinal fluid around the spinal cord, which gives the patient the maximum improvement by relaxing the spasmodic muscles.
Baclofen Test
Before approving the operation, we perform the so-called Baclofen Test, in order to ensure the effectiveness of the operation before performing it. This procedure is done by entering the patient to a hospital for one day, and injecting the spinal fluid with Baklovin by injecting it into the lower back with an amount of (50 micrograms), and observing the patient for eight hours in order to assess the extent of limb relaxation and the disappearance of the spasm, and give the patient comfort and an effective result to accept or reject perform the operation
Who is the operation for?
The operation is performed for all ages for more than four years for patients with cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, and sclerosis resulting from brain and spinal cord injuries, and the success rate of the operation is more than 95%. Mobilization every three to six months.