Power

If you were to ask most people if they’d prefer to use a manual screwdriver or a powered instrument to drive screws into a hard surface, the vast majority would choose the powered device. They would reason that the torque and speed offered through power would make the process more efficient and it would require less physical effort to drive the screws into the hard surface. In most cases, they’d be right.

Nearly all of the reasons supporting the powered screwdriver also apply to surgical procedures that involve setting screws into a bone, which is why the use of powered devices has been customary for decades in traditional orthopedic operations such as hip and knee surgeries.

Even with a powered surgical driver, these orthopedic surgeries often involve a great deal of physical effort associated with drilling, tapping, and securely setting rods, implants, and screws into the bone. If a manual screwdriver was used instead, not only would the surgery be utterly exhausting, but the physical strain from doing surgery after surgery using a manual device would make it impossible for the surgeon to attend to multiple patients, as they do today. In addition, the repetitive motion caused by twisting the screwdriver over and over again likely would lead to carpal tunnel syndrome, or some other injury that probably would impede the surgeon’s career.

Today, power drives most orthopedic surgeries, but there are some exceptions. Until recently, surgeons have been apprehensive about incorporating powered surgical devices in their spine surgeries. Although spine surgeries technically are considered an orthopedic specialty, it’s practiced mostly by neurosurgeons due to its proximity to the long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue that makes up the central nervous system. Too much power or torque could have dire consequences for the patient.

Understandably, most spinal surgeons were inclined to use a manual device to set screws into the vertebral column. But with 24 articulating vertebrae and nine fused vertebrae in the sacrum and the coccyx, this process often is physically laborious.

The need to drill multiple holes and drive numerous screws into the bone is the principle reason behind what led the craniomaxillofacial market to augment their cranial closure systems with powered devices.

“We’ve definitely seen a trend over the past few years with more and more surgeons wanting a powered screwdriver and drill to reconnect the cranial flap after a craniotomy,” said Pat Lemoine, senior product manager at KLS Martin. “Powered devices not only assist them in finishing the procedure more efficiently, saving them time, but they also result in less hand fatigue.”