**1. Introduction**

Patients with spinal stenosis, either cervical and/or lumbar, are at an increased risk of falling [1,2]. Surgical treatment for both cervical and lumbar stenosis have been shown to decrease the risk of falling by improving physical performance, including walking and balancing [1–5]. There are many reported studies on prevalence, results of conservative or surgical treatment, gait patterns, hand dexterity–functional impairment and predictors of degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) [6–18]. A recent study reported that hand grip strength (HGS) might be a useful surrogate marker with which to predict the risk of falls and clinical outcomes in patients with lumbar stenosis [19].

Compared to lumbar stenosis, patients with DCM could have higher correlation between increased risk of falling and weakened HGS [20–24]. We also suspected that any observed correlations would differ according to sex. Our objectives in this investigation were to assess correlations for HGS with postoperative changes in the risk of falling and QoL in patients with DCM, separately for both men and women.

#### **2. Materials and Methods**
