Dear Scoliosis Patients

Scoliosis is a Dysfunction

Scoliosis is a dysfunction of the neuro-muscular skeletal system.  The Medical “Gold Standard” of treatment which, is bracing and surgery, has few positive results or long-term solutions.  As Spinal Experts, Chiropractors and the Chiropractic profession should take the lead in the correction and stabilization of the Scoliotic patient.

Contrary to medical misinformation, scoliosis correction is not age dependent and does not stop at osseous maturity.  The age of the patients we have worked with in our Clinic varies from less than 1 to 80 years old.

Traditional approaches to scoliosis such as bracing and surgery have neglected the importance of the cervical spine (the head & neck) in affecting spinal pathology, posture, and gait. Scientific research done by physicists, not physicians – has suggested a more optimal approach to achieve the desired corrections.

By combining new information with established principles of chiropractic & biomechanics as a means of retraining the neuro-muscular proprioceptive pathways, effective and permanent corrections to scoliosis can be obtained much more rapidly than with isometric exercises or chiropractic adjustments alone.

Scoliosis is often accompanied by evidence of disc degeneration, osteoporosis, congenital malformation, and disc wedging. These are believed to be the symptoms of scoliosis, however, rather than the cause.

Wolff’s Law states that a bone under stress will heal faster; Davis’ Law is the corresponding equivalent that declares soft tissues such as ligaments & muscles will also re-heal more efficiently while under stress.

These same principles apply to healthy tissues, as well.

Rotation and translation are a coupled motion when it occurs in the spinal column; it is impossible to address one dimension without affecting the other. For this reason, you cannot rehabilitate scoliosis unless you address it 3-dimensionally. In fact, research has proven that abnormal rotation of the spine develops either prior to or during the onset of scoliosis, but scoliosis CANNOT develop if this rotatory subluxation is not present!

90% of the time the scoliosis patient presents with a standard posture; forward head posture, right head tilt, right high shoulder, right thoracic Cobb angle, left lumbo-dorsal Cobb angle, right posterior and let anterior hips sitting and the opposite hip displacement standing.

Abnormal subluxation patterns and abnormal spinal biomechanics are present.  The active scoliosis patient usually presents with forward head posture and a loss of cervical lordosis.  The occiput and atlas have an extension malposition (posterior occiput).

This has a subluxation effect on the proprioceptive spinocerebellar loop resulting in dysponesis in spinal growth torsion (idiopathic scoliosis).

The forward head posture and loss of lordosis always precede the Scoliosis.  Therefore, before the A-P dimension of the Scoliosis can be corrected, the cervical lordosis must be re-established first!

It is possible to change this abnormal position by retraining the nervous system.

Many of the Scoliosis patients have a “Librarian Posture”, looking through the top of their ocular orbits.  This can be corrected by putting tape on the inside, superior ½ of a pair of glasses.

The spinous rotate into the concave rather than the convex side.  This abnormal rotation decreases abnormal mechanical tension on the nervous system.

Unfortunately, Chiropractic manipulation frequently makes the condition worse by mobilizing fixated, compensated vertebra.  Adjusting on the “high side of the rainbow” is contraindicated.

A retrospective case series entitled, “Scoliosis treatment using a combination of manipulative and rehabilitative therapy” by Mark Morningstar, Dennis Woggon, and Gary Lawrence, was published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders on September 14, 2004.  19 patients were monitored with Scoliosis ranging from 15 to 52 degree Cobb angles.  After 4 to 6 weeks there was an average reduction of 62% or 17 degrees.  8 of the 19 were no longer classified as Scoliotic.

In order to achieve these results, specific Chiropractic adjustments were provided along with rehabilitative procedures.  These procedures included specific spinal isometric exercises, proprioceptive neuromuscular re-education, cervical and lumbar lordosis restoration, muscle and ligament rehab.

Scoliosis is a disease of the neuro-muscular skeletal system.  As Spinal Experts, the Chiropractic profession should take the lead in the correction and stabilization of the Scoliotic patient.