Sibel Demir, MD
Clinical Professor
Nonoperative Spine and Interventional Spine Specialist
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
UCSF Spine Center
Dr. Sibel Demir is a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist and an expert in the comprehensive nonoperative treatment of spinal disorders, interventional spine procedures, and chronic spine-related pain. She has more than two decades of experience caring for patients with complex disorders of the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine at the UCSF Spine Center.
Dr. Demir treats a broad range of spinal conditions, including disc herniation, spinal canal and neural foraminal stenosis, degenerative disc disease, spondylolysis, spondylolisthesis, degenerative scoliosis, radiculopathy, and chronic low back, mid-back, and neck pain. Her goal is to reduce pain, restore function, and improve quality of life through comprehensive, evidence-based nonsurgical care.
Comprehensive and Individualized Spine Care
Dr. Demir's approach goes beyond treating an abnormality seen on an MRI. She considers each patient's symptoms, physical examination, imaging findings, functional limitations, response to previous treatments, and individual goals to understand the factors contributing to the patient's pain and determine the most appropriate treatment strategy.
Dr. Demir uses a comprehensive, multimodal approach for every patient, integrating multiple evidence-based nonoperative treatments to address the different factors contributing to pain and functional limitations. Treatment includes rehabilitation and exercise, pharmacologic management, image-guided spine interventions when indicated, and other nonoperative therapies, individualized to each patient's needs and goals.
When surgery may be appropriate, she collaborates with the multidisciplinary UCSF Spine Center team to help patients understand their treatment options and determine the most appropriate next step.
Interventional Spine Care
A major focus of Dr. Demir's practice is interventional spine care. She has extensive experience performing fluoroscopically guided spine procedures and performs approximately 2,000 spine injections annually, while evaluating approximately 1,500 patients each year.
She selects image-guided spine procedures based on each patient's symptoms, physical examination, imaging findings, response to previous treatments, and overall treatment goals. These procedures are incorporated into a comprehensive nonoperative treatment program rather than used as stand-alone treatment.
Mindfulness and Chronic Pain Management
Dr. Demir integrates mindfulness-based approaches into the comprehensive treatment of chronic pain. She has completed extensive training in mindfulness meditation, awareness, and compassion-based practices, including multiple mindfulness teacher training and certification programs. She incorporates these evidence-based mind-body approaches into patient care to help patients manage persistent pain, reduce pain-related distress, and improve function and quality of life.
She is also a Co-Principal Investigator of the NIH-funded INSPIRE study, which integrates mindfulness meditation with cognitive behavioral therapy, exercise, physical activity, and health coaching for chronic pain. She contributes expertise in chronic pain and mindfulness-based interventions and helps develop and teach the mindfulness components of the program.
Research
Dr. Demir's research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of chronic low back pain and improving the evaluation and nonsurgical treatment of spinal disorders. Her research interests include degenerative disc disease, spinal stenosis, spondylolisthesis, vertebral endplate pathology and Modic changes, paraspinal muscle health and function, spinopelvic alignment, advanced imaging, and outcomes of nonsurgical and interventional treatments.
She has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on several clinical and translational research programs involving spinal disorders and chronic pain.
As Co-Principal Investigator of the NIH-supported UCSF REACH Center, she contributed to multidisciplinary research investigating the biological, biomechanical, and psychosocial mechanisms underlying chronic low back pain. The program integrated advanced imaging, clinical phenotyping, biomechanics, biological measures, and patient-reported outcomes to better understand spinal pain and develop more individualized approaches to diagnosis and treatment.
Dr. Demir has also investigated the effectiveness and clinical outcomes of comprehensive nonsurgical treatments for patients with spondylolisthesis. Her research examining the relationship between vertebral endplate pathology, paraspinal muscle quality, and patient-reported symptoms in chronic low back pain received the 2019 International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine (ISSLS) Prize.
Education and Teaching
Dr. Demir is a Clinical Professor at UCSF and has lectured nationally and internationally on spine interventional therapies, comprehensive nonoperative management of spinal disorders, chronic low back pain, and mindfulness-based approaches to pain management.
At UCSF, she teaches Orthopaedic Surgery residents, Spine Surgery fellows, Interventional Spine and Musculoskeletal Medicine fellows, and medical students. Her teaching focuses on comprehensive spine evaluation, evidence-based nonsurgical treatment, clinical and imaging-based decision-making, and fluoroscopically guided spine interventions.
Areas of Expertise
Comprehensive nonoperative spine care
Interventional spine medicine
Chronic low back, mid-back, and neck pain
Cervical and lumbar radiculopathy
Sciatica
Cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spinal stenosis
Disc herniation
Degenerative disc disease
Spondylolisthesis
Adult degenerative scoliosis
Fluoroscopically guided spine procedures
Comprehensive multimodal spine treatment
Mindfulness-based approaches to chronic pain