In Lviv, doctors performed a successful surgery on 15-year-old Mykhailina, who suffers from cerebral palsy and scoliosis. Due to the latter disease, the girl’s spine was curved by 90 degrees, writes UP Life.
Over the three years, the disease has significantly worsened the girl’s condition, tilting her to one side. Mykhailina was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when she was just 8 months old. It is a disease of the central nervous system that disrupts coordination, motor and muscle activity. Because of this, the girl has been in a wheelchair since childhood, as her brain sends negative impulses to her muscles, which makes her legs not obey.
From the age of 8, Mykhailyna regularly visited orthopedic traumatologists, who helped her get rid of contractures – restrictions of movement in the joints of her lower extremities. This allowed the girl to move her legs and even stand on them. However, at the age of 12, Mykhailyna began to develop scoliosis, which progressed rapidly.
The operation, which lasted 6 hours, was performed by Lviv surgeons together with their American colleague Mark Dyrzhka from the Presbyterian Hospital of New York. According to Marian Orach, an orthopedic trauma surgeon at St. Nicholas Hospital, the doctors first separated the spine from the soft tissues, then isolated each vertebra and inserted special screws into them, which were connected to each other with titanium rods. It was these rods that straightened the girl’s back.
Doctors managed to correct the curvature of the spine by 80%. Mykhailyna is now recovering from surgery.
