Degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis is one of the most frequent surgical indications of spinal surgery in the elderly patient group. Because of the progression of the disease and neurologic deficiencies, patients’ quality of life is affected. We aimed to evaluate the postoperative quality of life of the surgically treated spinal stenotic patients.

Between 1998 and 2009, 38 patients, who were surgically decompressed and enstrumentated in our clinic were included to the study. The patients were preoperatively and postoperatively evaluated with Visual Analogue (Scale (VAS) and Japanese Orthopaedics Association (JOA) criterias. The same patient group were re-evaluated on the postoperative 6th month with Hamilton anxiety and depression scale, on the 12th month with short form-36 and Oswestry pain scoring scales to measure the quality of life.

Mean age of 38 patients (31 female, 7 male) was 59.6 (range 44 to 82). Mean preoperative VAS was 7.97 and postoperative VAS was 2.28. The pain decreased 56.9%. According to JOA criterias, in 3 patients (7.89%) no recovery, in 13 patients (34.2%) less than 50% recovery and in 22 patients (57.8%) more than 50% recovery was obtained. On the 6th month, according to Hamilton anxiety and depression scale, in 12 patients anxiety and in 3 of these patients depression which needs treatment was observed. The pain of all the patients with anxiety recovered meaningfully (42.3%) but according to JOA, less than 50% recovery could be obtained.

Surgically treated spinal stenosis patients improved clinically and radiologically and this affected the patients’ quality of life positively