Advanced Spine Care

Why choose Ochsner for advanced spine care?

The Joy & Boysie Bollinger Advanced Spine Center at Ochsner Health provides the most thorough spine care in the Gulf South. Our team of neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons and advanced practice providers has extensive experience in treating all spinal disorders.

Ochsner’s advanced spine program is the only one in the Gulf South that combines the knowledge and expertise of both neurosurgical and orthopedic spine surgery. Our spine-fellowship trained surgeons work together as one team, collaborating during every phase of patient care. We also share our research methods, approaches and results. This allows us to treat a variety of advanced spinal conditions safely and efficiently.

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The advanced spine Center team collaborates with other specialties to treat the most challenging spinal conditions. We work closely with other specialties including pain management, physical medicine and rehabilitation, pre-operative care, nursing, ICU care, acute pain service and many others to ensure all our patients’ needs are met.

Our clinical navigators help guide patients through their care journey, making sure they have seamless care and an overall excellent experience.

We are at the forefront of spinal cancer care with access to the latest treatments and clinical trials.

We specialize in advanced spine surgery and treat all surgical spinal conditions, including:

Scoliosis
Spinal deformity
Spine infections
Spine tumors and spinal cord tumors
Lumbar disc herniations
Complex spinal conditions

We also specialize in revision spine surgery, treating patients who have not had success with conservative or non-surgical treatments, and patients who have had unsuccessful previous spinal surgeries.

Our team offers a range of non-surgical and surgical options to treat your neck pain and back pain. The foundation of our care is conservative management, which means we try to avoid surgery if possible.

Our goal is to improve your quality of life, whether through decreasing your pain, improving your neurologic function or correcting your posture.

We are the only integrated orthopedic-neurological spine surgery program in the Gulf South. Our team has access to the best surgical technology in the region. We use the latest technologies in virtual reality, augmented reality, computer navigation and robotics to enhance surgeries.

We are the first and only program in the region to use augmented reality technology for spine surgery.

Our fellowship-trained surgeons are highly specialized in spine surgery. They have extensive experience in minimally invasive surgical techniques, including robotic spine surgery and traditional open surgery.

Because of our team approach to surgery, patients generally experience faster and safer surgeries. This means less time in the operating room, less time under general anesthesia, less blood loss during surgery, fewer blood transfusions and faster recovery.

Ochsner’s neurosurgery program is the only neurosurgical program in Louisiana ranked by U.S. News & World Report. It has been ranked as a Top 50 program for 13 years in a row.

Ochsner is one of nine centers nationally chosen by Contigo and other third-party administrators to provide spine surgical care to their large Fortune 500 company clients.

Ochsner's advanced spine team offers second opinions to patients receiving treatment at other facilities. You or a referring physician can request a second opinion by calling 504-842-3980.

The Bollinger Advanced Spine Center is actively engaged in research. We participate in research projects that involve reviewing radiation exposure during spine surgery and using artificial intelligence in spine surgery.

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FAQs

Complex spine conditions are health issues that affect the spine. This includes the bones in your back and also the nerves, muscles, and sometimes the spinal cord itself. Examples include severe scoliosis (a condition where the spine curves in a way it shouldn't), spinal tumors (abnormal growths) or injuries that require special care from doctors.

Complex spine surgery covers a wide range of spine problems, and recovery time after spine surgery depends on the nature of the problem, the type of surgery you have, the severity of your condition, your age, fitness level and overall health. Most people are walking right away after surgery and starting to get back to normal life with some activity restrictions. Most people take about six weeks off from work, depending on the nature of their jobs, to recover from surgery. The full benefit of complex spine surgery often takes several months to a year after surgery.

In most cases, nerve pain related to complex spine problems improves immediately or within a few weeks of surgery. Improvement in nerve dysfunction such as arm or leg weakness related to complex spine problems varies depending on its severity and duration, but generally takes several months to a year.

Scoliosis surgery generally takes between four to eight hours, but each case is different and shorter or longer operating times are not unusual. It is a major surgery that involves realigning the spine while protecting the nerves, spinal cord, blood vessels and internal organs.

One of the goals of scoliosis surgery is spinal fusion, in which the separate bones of the spinal column heal together to form one solid bone. This process generally takes about three months for the bone to heal. Before the bone heals, there are modest activity restrictions placed such as limiting bending, twisting and lifting heavy objects. After the spine fuses, all activity restrictions are usually lifted. There will be some loss of range of motion of the spine after surgery, but in general this is not limiting to patients in terms of function or quality of life.

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