Background: Self care practices affect the progress of many diseases including lumbar disc prolapse. This study aimed to assess self care practices of patients with lumbar disc prolapse in the post operative period. Setting: This study conducted at neuro-surgery department and outpatient clinic at Azhar university hospital in New Damietta city. A convenience sample of 124 adult patients diagnosed with lumbar disc prolapse were included in the study. Tool of data collection: data collected using structured interview questionnaire, it included four parts: demographic data, medical and surgical history, pain intensity and follow up and Self-care practices of patients with lumbar disc prolapse. Results:The result of present study showed that 100% of the studied patients felt pain when doing an activity and 72.6 % of them had unsatisfactory self care practices in the post operative period. Conclusion: More than two third of the studied patients need improve self care practices regarding to unsatisfactory self care practices and there wasn't statistically significance relation between demographic data and self care practices.Recommendations: Design patient educational materials include proper self care practices of patients with lumbar disc prolapse in the post operative period . The health education program should be tailored every patient's individual needs .

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Background Data: Atlanto-occipital dislocation is a rare and fatal condition. Pain, limitation of movements, and weakness, were the main complaints of patients with upper cervical lesions. Internal fixation and fusion was indicated in all patients of Atlanto occipital dislocation with deficits. CT scan is the imaging modality of choice for evaluation. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of rod and screw fixation in cranio-cervical instability. Study Design: Retrospective study reviewed all patient treated by rod and screw fixation, they were 12 patient operated for atlanto-occipital instability from April 2013 to April 2016 in Alazher University Hospital Damietta. Pre and postoperative data collection and analysis of the outcome were completed based on the Frankel classification and grading. Patients and Methods: We operated 12 patients, 10 with traumatic and 2 with pathologically diagnosed Atlanto occipital instability. From April 2013 to April 2016. All patients presented with neck pain, limitation of neck movement, and neurological deficits. The patients were investigated by standard plain X ray to the cervical spine, CT scan and MRI of the cervical spine pre-operatively, and they operated thorough posterior Cranio-cervical fixation. These patients followed post-operatively clinically for improving neural functions and radiologically for alignment, stability, fusion and efficacy of hard ware fixation. Results: The mean age of the studied cases was 42.1 years, trauma was the cause of instability in 10 patients, and 2 patients one with rheumatoid arthritis and one with neoplastic lesion. The mean follows up period is 14.7 months. We used screw rod system in posterior craniocervical fixation with iliac bone graft without operative or post-operative complications. All our patients were improved neurologically post-operatively and no hardware failure during the follow up period. Conclusion: Craniocervical instability was rare condition, with miss diagnosis and may be fatal condition. Posterior occipitocervical fixation when indicated can be done by various techniques. The screw rod system was the most upgraded used technique with immediate rigid fixation.

Objective: To evaluate the factors affecting the surgical outcome of traumatic intracranial hematoma. Patient and Methods: This study was retrospectively conducted on 60 patients with traumatic intracranial hematoma admitted to the Neurosurgery Department, Al-Azhar University Hospital and underwent surgical management. Results: The age range was 10 -58 years, mean age was 31.50 years, male-to-female ratio was 3:1. The causative trauma was road traffic accident (45%), direct trauma to the head (30%) and fall from height (FFH) (25%) of all studied patients. Morbidity and/or mortality was reported in 38.3% and unfavorable outcome was significantly associated with longer delay time (time from injury to surgery), increased operative time, long duration of hospital stay and lower Glasgow coma scale at admission and discharge. Otherwise, the unfavorable outcome although increased with old age, there was no significant association. Conclusion: Head trauma is considered as a frequent cause of death and disability. Time consuming to reach the hospital, operative time, length of stay in hospital and Glasgow coma score of the patient on admission and discharge markedly determine the surgical outcome of traumatic intracranial hematoma.

Background: Spondylotic cervical myelopathy is defined as spinal cord dysfunction secondary to extrinsic compression of the spinal cord and/or its vascular supply so it is the commonest cause of cord dysfunction in patients over 55 years. Main Surgery target is to prevent the progression of symptoms also to improve existing symptoms. Aim of the work: To determine prognostic factors of patients with spondylotic cervical myelopathy that surgically managed through anterior approach in relation to outcome clinically and radiologically. Patients and methods: From July 2015 till December 2018, forty patients with cervical myelopathy were operated by anterior surgical approach (anterior cervical discectomy with fusion and/or corpectomy with fusion. Only patients with confirmed spondylotic myelopathy were included; we exclude those with an infectious, inflammatory or neoplastic etiology. Results: Patients ages were ranged from (40-67) years, with a mean age 53.2 years. Duration of myelopathy ranged from 2-18 months with a mean duration of 8.55 months. 72.5% patients were treated by discectomy with fusion and 27.5%cases were treated by combined discectomy and corpectomy with fusion. Excellent outcome was reported in 22.5%, while 62.5% cases had good outcome,15% patients had fair outcome. Patient age, disease severity, duration, bowel & bladder manifestations and affection of dorsa column were the prognostic factors in studied patients. Conclusion: Our study reveals that the significant prognostic factors are: age of patient, severity of myelopathy, duration of myelopathy, presence of bowel or bladder symptoms, dorsal column affection and high signal intensity of T2 weighted MRI.