Surgery for the Painful, Dysfunctional Sacroiliac Joint

Bruce E. Dall, MDOrthopedic Spine SurgeonBorgess Brain and Spine InstituteWestern Michigan University School of MedicineKalamazoo, MIUSASonia V. Eden, MDNeurosurgeon Borgess Brain and Spine InstituteWestern Michigan University School of MedicineKalamazoo, MIUSAMichael D. Rahl, PT, DPT, OCS, CSCSPhysical TherapistFull Potential Physical TherapyHolland, MIUSADr. Dall has spent the past twenty-five years in private and academic medical settings diagnosing and treating patients with sacroiliac joint pain. He has published several articles in major peer review journals on his work with this subject and has contributed new techniques and ideas for diagnosing and treating the patient with a painful, dysfunctional sacroiliac joint. He has shown how factors such as a previous failed lumbar fusion, chronic illness, obesity and chronic pain can make these patients special challenges for the surgeon. He continues to be very active in this area by recently publishing an algorithm for the diagnoses and treatment of sacroiliac joint dysfunction, publishing extensive long-term follow-up studies on surgical outcomes for this condition, and working with engineers in the cadaver lab to answer questions concerning stress analysis in the pathologic sacroiliac joint, how that changes with surgery and how that is affected by fusion of adjacent joints. These are all firsts concerning the current knowledge base for the sacroiliac joint.