While general surgery and trauma surgery patients show significant differences regarding duration of inpatient treatment, more frequent falls and more frequent rehabilitative inpatient follow-up treatments, patients after elective lumbar fusion show only a trend. Possibly the result is due to the underlying degenerative disease of the lumbar spine with spinal stenosis and gait disturbance in the MP group and as well in the control group. Therefore both groups suffered from impaired mobility. Additionally there was a high incidence of other comorbidities in the control group, which could have affected the results of this study. Another limitation is the number of the included patients. Although, this study showed no increased occurrence of complications, typical risk factors, like increased risk for airway complications, urinary tract infection and falls, should be considered for the treatment of MP patients.

No abstract