here's a side view
of an MRI of a patient with substantial degenerative changes
and a degenerative Spondylolisthesis Stenosis or slip
at four five
and the central canal is also blocked
and that is called spinal stenosis
again reading this MRI
we see the spinal cord here which ends there and the nerve roots which come out
of the spinal cord
again the white is cerebral spinal fluid which is water
we see again the vertebra
we see again the discs
these discs here are quite degenerative
and if we look carefully we're going to see that this L four vertebra has slid
forward on L five
that slip
is called a degenerative Spondylolisthesis
and we can look at the spinal canal
and see the spinal canal in this area
his clogged up essentially and quite narrowed and that is deleterious to the
nerves
we can look at this with a top-down view and again the yellow line here is where
we're making our cut
here's the spinal canal we can see all of the nerve roots here
we look at the facets before these are degenerative facets
and if we march up the spine and watch the size of the canal
will see that the canal narrows substantially right here
and literally the contents of the entire spinal canal are in this tiny little
triangular area
as soon as we pass that level up the spinal canal becomes normal size
and the nerves spread out like they were designed to spread out
so this particular patient right here at the four five level has severe spinal
stenosis
because one vertebra has slid forward on the other
compressing the nerve substantially at that level
