Prehabilitation in Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy: An Underexplored Opportunity to Optimize Outcomes
Date
Authors
Fortin, Maryse
Chauhan, Rohil V
Boerger, Timothy F
Montpetit, Chanelle
Kobaisi, Adam
Lantz, Justin M
Kumar, Vishal
Plener, Joshua
Demetriades, Andreas K
Wood, Lianne
Supervisor
Item type
Journal article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
Letter to Editor [Excerpt] While degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) is the most prevalent cause of non-traumatic spinal cord dysfunction in adults worldwide, it remains under-recognized in clinical practice. Globally, the average time from symptom onset to diagnosis is 15 months (Malone et al., 2025). DCM is marked by progressive spinal cord compression, neuronal apoptosis, and chronic inflammation, often leading to neurological deficits including gait and balance disturbances, hand dysfunction, and muscle weakness (Malone et al., 2025). In moderate to severe cases, surgical decompression is advised to stop further neurological deterioration (Fehlings et al., 2017). However, surgery alone does not address the associated physical deconditioning and musculoskeletal sequelae, such as reduced cervical mobility, impaired walking capacity, muscle weakness and atrophy, dexterity loss, and pain that accompany prolonged DCM. Furthermore, symptoms often persist following surgery, with 25-50% of patients experiencing minimal improvement; failing to achieve the minimally clinically important difference for functional or quality-of-life outcomes (Jaja et al., 2023). This raises an important question that remains largely unexplored: could prehabilitation improve outcomes for individuals with DCM?Description
Keywords
32 Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, 42 Health Sciences, Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy
Source
Publisher's version
Rights statement
© 2026 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of EANS, the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies, EUROSPINE, the Spine Society of Europe. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. You are not required to obtain permission to reuse this article.