CommonSpirit Health has healthcare providers and hospitals providing neurological care throughout Colorado, Utah and western Kansas. While every hospital provides diagnostic testing and medical treatments for neurological conditions, only certain CommonSpirit Health hospitals offer specialized neurological care such as epilepsy monitoring, deep brain stimulation, minimally invasive brain surgery and other highly specialized services. Locating specialized care in specific hospitals allows us to recruit the physicians and clinical teams that focus on those areas and also buy the most advanced technology. Every CommonSpirit Health hospital and provider is part of a neuroscience system that ensures patients get the most appropriate care available.

Yes, neurosurgeons perform many types of spine surgery, including minimally invasive procedures to treat spine conditions that cause neck and back pain. Like orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons can specialize and obtain extra training, called fellowship training, in spine surgery.

Neurosurgeons who perform surgery at CommonSpirit Health hospitals are expertly trained neurosurgeons. Many of these neurosurgeons completed extra fellowship training in a subspecialty of neurosurgery and most CommonSpirit Health neurosurgeons are board certified. Many of the younger neurosurgeons have the training necessary to become board certified but are required to wait a certain amount of time after they complete their medical residencies to take the exams. Board certification means that the physician has taken exams to prove their expertise in the field.

CommonSpirit Health neuroscience specialists include:

• One of the nation’s preeminent expert in treating trigeminal neuralgia, offering all three of the available surgical procedures
• A national leader in pioneering robotic-guided deep brain stimulation performed with patient asleep
• The state's most experienced neurosurgeon in performing deep brain stimulation (DBS)
• A neurosurgeon with three post-graduate fellowships (adult neurosurgery, reconstructive spinal surgery and spinal deformity)
• An interventional neurologist specializing in stroke and vascular neurology and endovascular neurosurgery
• One of only two fellowship-trained functional neurologists in Colorado, offering hope to patients who have not responded to conventional treatments

We track clinical information on all neurosurgery services and compare these to national benchmarks to ensure that we are providing the highest quality of neurosurgical care to our patients. Our stroke program also is reviewed by outside organizations for patient outcomes. These organizations also review our protocols to ensure they meet best practice standards and our breadth of services to ensure we can provide the full continuum of care needed by patients who have a stroke.

Falls resulting in concussions or traumatic brain injuries are one of the most common neurological concussions, also called traumatic brain injuries, are most common in older adults due to falls. Other common neurological conditions experience by elderly people include strokes, osteoarthritis in the spine, neuropathy, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.

Spine surgery is the most common surgical procedure performed by neurosurgeons. Spine surgery includes two categories of procedures: surgeries to decompress pressure on or pinching of spinal nerves, and stabilization surgery to provide strength and stability to the spine by limiting motion.

There are many types of neurosurgery, including many minimally invasive procedures that are performed through tiny incisions. Many CommonSpirit Health neurosurgeons also perform robotic surgery. The neurosurgeons use these robotic systems to either guide them through the anatomy or to guide the precise placement of devices. Our neurosurgeons perform minimally invasive spine surgery and minimally invasive brain surgery. Robotic surgery is used for deep brain stimulation, brain tumor surgery, and spine surgery.

Neurosurgeons perform surgery for a large number of neurological conditions, including movement disorders like epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease, brain tumors, spine conditions and neurovascular diseases. If you’ve been referred to a neurosurgeon but want to make sure this surgeon is the right one for you, or if you are searching for a neurosurgeon, here are some questions you can ask:

• What is your training in neurosurgery? Are you fellowship-trained?
• Are you board certified?
• What is your subspecialty within neurosurgery?
• How many surgeries of the type I’m considering have you performed?
• How do you track and maintain the quality of your care?
• Where do you perform surgery?
• What can I expect in terms of communication with you and your team?