Are you REALLY supposed to do nothing to treat scoliosis until it gets bad enough that surgery is the only option?
When parent take their child to see a specialist for scoliosis they are often advised to nothing and just “watch and wait” to see if the scoliosis gets worse. The difficulty with that in many cases, once the scoliosis has progressed past a certain degree they found out that it maybe too late for alternative measures to work. It’s only then that they realizes that what they really meant was “let’s watch and wait for the scoliosis to get worse to the point that surgery is necessary.”
The problem with this lack of corrective action is that it now lead you down the path to the self fulfilling prophecy of needing surgery when you could have taken another turn earlier and avoided it. Limiting your treatment options in never something you want to do, especially when you are trying to avoid a long and difficult scoliosis surgery.
Although the medical profession considers spinal surgery “the gold standard” of scoliosis treatment studies show that often the long term results are anything but golden. A study of the long term complications of scoliosis surgery revealed that a full 40 % of patients who underwent scoliosis surgery as children were legally defined as severely handicapped when they grew to be adults .*
Another study examined the approximate 20,000 scoliosis surgeries performed each year on children and adolescents and found that on average when they later became adults about 8,000 of them (40%) had their condition years after surgery decay to the point that they became “legally defined” as permanently disabled for life.**
There is a Better Way: Non-Surgical Corrective Movement Therapy for Scoliosis
In scoliosis the body has a “rotation dysfunction” pattern of movement that is abnormally rotated on one direction. The degree of this torque will largely determine if the curvature of the spine will progressively worsen. If this pattern is left unchecked then there is a large chance that the curvatures will progress as the movement pattern becomes further ingrained in the nervous system. The end result becomes the postural muscles supporting the spine become taut and shortened one side while muscles on the other side becoming overly lengthened and inept. This causes the spine to become twisted and imbalanced as the connective tissues surrounding these muscles adaptively shorten in response further limiting movement and adding to the pattern of dysfunction.
In order to stop the progression of the scoliosis curvatures you must stop this vicious cycle. The best way to do this is to provide the body with appropriate corrective movement therapies that will help re-pattern the dysfunction.
Schroth Method of Corrective Scoliosis Exercise
The Schroth Method of scoliosis is designed to keep patients from having invasive surgery by improving their movement patterns. Originally developed by Katharina Schroth to treat her own scoliosis symptoms. As her success with scoliosis grew she later founded the Schroth Institute in East Germany. The treatment protocols were continually refined over the years and the Schroth Method as it became known became the model for scoliosis treatment in much of the Eastern Block. With the fall of the Berlin Wall the popularity of the method spread throughout Europe and most recently to the U.S.
Schroth scoliosis specific exercises are a progressive series of guided postural hold and movement corrections designed to halt the rotation dysfunction of the spine. It also realigns the ribcage to help reduce the thoracic deformity.
To properly provide these intensive exercises a therapist should be specially trained in them. Our doctors traveled to Germany to study at the Schroth Institute and are Certified Schroth Method Instructors. They are among a handful of certified Schroth providers in the U.S.
As part of a comprehensive corrective movement scoliosis treatment program we use the Schroth Method in combination with a uniquely designed flexible dynamic corrective scoliosis brace that gives our patient the best odds of stopping the progression of their curvatures to avoid scoliosis surgery.
SpineCor – The Incredible “Un-Brace” for Scoliosis Treatment
Not all scoliosis braces are hard and restrictive like a body cast. There is one that that instead of immobilizing the spine and restricting its movement it is elastic and soft yet actually works to restore corrective movements in the body. So unlike traditional rigid braces that tend to cause muscle atrophy as side effect of immobilization, Spine Cor actually helps strengthen specific weak muscles in the spine to help correct curvatures. Doctor’s have said that when it is being worn it’s like you are doing rehabilitative scoliosis therapy while you are doing your normal daily activities.
Because it allows a child (or adult) to move and is easily hidden under cloths there is far better patient compliance wearing the Spine Cor brace than with a hard bulky static brace.
The long term, post brace results with this corrective postural re-education program are extremely stable since it works to strengthen the body in the specific areas of weakness. A place where static braces often fail.
To properly configure the SpineCor brace it is necessary to have a solid understanding of the physics of the brace as well as the biomechanics of the body. Because different types of scoliosis (ie: primary C-shaped left lumbar vs a S-shaped thoracolumbar) need to have the brace set up differently, it important that provider have a great deal of experience in fitting the brace.
Our doctors are the most experienced Certified Spine Cor Providers in the U.S. They have helped thousands of patients (both children and adults) improve their scoliosis with this dynamic tension brace.
The foundation of any non-surgical treatment approach for scoliosis should be the dynamic restoration of function of the spine. Utilization of a constructive corrective brace should also incorporate other effective scoliosis rehabilitation programs.
Although there are many different types of exercise programs for scoliosis most of them take a limited 2-dimensional idea, failing to address the unseen rotational element of scoliosis. A 3-dimensional treatment action is needed to achieve the best results. The Schroth Method is an intensive and specifically directed program that produces such results.
Summary
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get a different result. If doing nothing up to this point has resulted in the scoliosis progressing, it is insane to think that doing the same thing (i.e.: nothing) will yield a different result (i.e.: stopping the forward march).
Don’t just sit around and watch and wait for the scoliosis to get worse. Find out if you are a candidate for corrective movement scoliosis therapy.
For a Free Telephone Consultation with one of our doctors to ask you specific scoliosis question Call (919)439-8227. They will get back to you within 24 hours to answer your questions.
Or
You can Email your question to us at Scoliosis Care Foundation on Facebook.
Dr. Brett Diaz, D.C.
Director of Patient Education
Spine Cor Center of Cary
200 Pinner Weald Way Suite #102
Cary, NC 27513
(919)439-8227
*Long-term results of quality of life in patients with idiopathic scoliosis after Harrington instrumentation and their relevance for expert evidence.
** Scoliosis Correction Center – Scoliosis Surgery, The Untold Truth
Thank you for this article on alternative scoliosis treatment it is a home run, pure and simple! I have never heard it explained better how scoliosis can be treated with movement based therapy before.
Hi, my name’s Terry and my 12 year old daughter’s name is Mattea. We found out that she had scoliosis when she was 8 years old during her yearly checkup.
We went to the orthopedist in town and he told us that her curve was like 21 degrees. When we asked what they could do for her and they recommended doing nothing and said that they would just watch and wait for now. When it gets bad enough, they’d put her in a hard brace and if it progresses far enough they would look to put steel rods up her spine.
This came as quite a shock to us and made us very downhearted at that time, so we decided to do our own research to try to see if we could find some type of scoliosis treatment rather than just
waiting for the inevitable to happen.
That’s when wee found Scoliosis Systems on the internet. When we first read the site it seemed to be almost too good to be true but we were intrigued so we called and spoke to Dr. Deutchman who explained the program to us over the phone. Afterwards we discussed it and since we wanted to be proactive we felt like we really needed to come and try this so we scheduled an appointment.
They checked Mattea’s spine and looked at the x-rays and told us that her curve was not quite as bad as we were initially told. It was only around 17 degree. They recommended that we put her in a flexible SpineCor scoliosis brace instead of a hard brace like the
orthopedist had recommended. They said they had high hopes that they could help her.
At the time she was only 8 years old. So we went for it, feeling like we had nothing to loose and everything to gain.
When we came back in six weeks for a check up, everything looked good. Then when we came back after another six weeks things were even better. The bend in her spine was down below 10 degrees. In my eyes this was miraculous!
So as we kept coming back every so often to just make sure the bend was staying straight at one point it got down to only 3 degrees.
Since Mattea was so young and she was doing so well, the doctor’s decided to let her be out of this brace for awhile to give her a chance to be a little girl, even though the brace was not – it’s cumbersome at all. They continued to monitor her over this time.
So she was able to be out of the brace for about a year but the doctors had told us when she got to a certain age that her growth spurts begins, that would be the prime time that if her scoliosis was going to return it would likely happen then.
They were right again. During one of her follow appointments at a time that she was growing like a weed we found out that her curve had reoccurred. It had gone up to 12 degrees, so we put in back in the Spinecor brace, kept her in it for six months and it
went back down to 7 degrees.
We’ve been back a couple times since then and it had stayed there. She’s been out of the brace now for three months and the curve has stayed less than 7 degrees, so she is now technically free of scoliosis. This has been a blessing and miraculous event in our life. Thank you very much Dr. Deutchman.
I wants to share some information regarding my wife Sammatha’s treatment at Spinecor Treatment of Cary and how the Spinecor brace has helped her with her severe scoliosis. She’s 65 years old and has been suffering with pain from her scoliosis for many years. She is an internet person and was looking online and that’s how she found them.
She’s had scoliosis her whole life but her pain has gotten so bad over the past few years she has been using a wheel chair on and off. Her MD prescribed her pain medications but she doesn’t like taking them so she just took over the counter medications instead.
Sam had a 68 degree scoliosis curvature so he referred her to an orthopedist who told her she really needed scoliosis surgery but he couldn’t guarantee her that she would she be free of pain afterwards so she said no thank you. So she resigned herself to being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. In fact, we had bought a house and were going to redo it to make it handicap accessible for her.
So when we came to Spinecor Treatment of Cary the best we hoped for was to stabilize her spine and relieve some of her pain. She got the brace and right away she noticed a big difference. They taught her the Schroth Method of scoliosis exercises. I’ve noticed that she has had a lot of improvement by doing these exercises at home.
The next time we returned for a follow up she her scoliosis had reduced by fifteen degrees! and she said she felt like a totally different person. Other people who know her also commented that she looked different too. She looked more relaxed because she was no longer in constant pain. What’s even better is that she no longer has to rely on a wheelchair to get around.
Because Dr. Deutchman and Dr. Lamantia helped develop the Spinecor brace for use with adults, so I would recommend them to any adult who has scoliosis because they’ve fit more adults in the Spinecor brace than any other providers in the United States.
In my opinion, the combination of using the Spinecor brace and the Schroth Method scoliosis exercises is the best type of alternative scoliosis treatment you can get.