Object: The authors investigated patients’ self assessments of lumbar surgery and evaluated the short-term results. Materials and Methods: Our center had 251 lumbar surgeries from July, 2005 to February, 2006 and we investigated all cases. Patients assessed Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Japan Orthopedic Assosiation Scale (JOA), Oswestry Disability Questionaire Index (ODI), Short Form36 (SF36)v2 at preoperation, 2 weeks, 3 months, and 6months of postoperation. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA, and then defferences among means were analyzed using the Scheffe method (P<0.05). Results: 244 patients (151 men and 93 women) responsed to the scales at preoperation, and returned 645 answers for 10 months. The mean age was 60.8 years (17-88). The mean follow-up period was 3.09 months (range, 0.5-11). The results showed 3 patterns. We observe that VAS, JOA, ODI and SF36-PF improved significantly (P<0.01) from 2 weeks after the operations. SF36-RP, BP, SF, MH and VT significantly(P<0.05) improved from after 3 months. SF36-RP and GH didn’t improve. Conclusions: VAS, JOA, ODI and SF36-PF had significantly improved from after 2 weeks with the lumbar operations. The mental component of SF-36 improved from after 3 months, but the recovery of the mental component was small compared with the recovery of the physical component.
