

If lumbar spinal stenosis becomes symptomatic it will often lead to neurogenic claudication. This means that the spinal cord or a spinal root is becoming entrapped due to the narrowing of the spinal canal or the intervertebral foramen. This narrowing is usually degenerative and can come from, osteophyte formation, thickening of the ligamentum flavum, spondylarthrosis, or a disc protrusion.
The clinical prediction rule of cook from the year 2010 contains a cluster of 5 elements from patient-history taking and observation that are predictive of lumbar spinal stenosis.According to the author zero positive findings lead to a sensitivity of 96% and a negative likelihood ratio of 0.19 and 4 or more positive findings lead to a specificity of 98% and a positive likelihood for spinal lumbar stenosis of 4.6. In practice, the use of this clinical prediction rule is moderate.
The cluster of Cook contains the following elements:
Other common tests for lumbar spinal stenosis are: