The Schroth alternative (exercise therapy)

[Scolio]

There seems finally to be a good alternative treatment. Physical therapists have been successfully treating scoliosis in Germany for years and now there are now some therapists in the US who practice this method. It is based on the concept that scoliosis is usually due to an imbalance of your back muscles (stronger on one side of each of the three major back regions--lumbar, thoracic, and cervical) and that we have to strengthen the weak muscles and make the strong ones more elastic. Not hocus-pocus at all.

See the following websites for more info:

English pages of the website of the Asklepios-Schroth clinic in Germany (unfortunately you need to understand German well to get treated there, and there is a long waiting list):
http://www.skoliose.com/Html/Englisch.htm

Website of Christa Lehnert-Schroth (now retired after 40+ years experience as physical-therapeutic treatment of scoliosis at the Schroth clinic):
http://www.schroth-skoliosebehandlung.de/

List of trained Schroth therapists in the US:
http://www.schroth-skoliosebehandlung.de/liste_therapeuten_eng.pdf

Newspaper article about successful Schroth therapy in Wisconsin:
http://www.wisinfo.com/journal/spjlocal/290624250400242.shtml

[Karen Ocker]

I've read many scholarly abstracts, in English on-line, in the National Library of Medicine. Bracing is still done and surgery is still needed in a number of cases. It also requires a lot of time and long term committment.

From the link you posted referring to the article:

" Niki has been doing them for seven months now. And in that time, Mike Pechinski has seen a transformation in his daughter. He's seen her back straighten after doing her exercises for 20 minutes (though it does regress again).....'
That's the problem--REGRESSION of the curves when the treatment is stopped. It takes a very highly motivated teen to keep this up.


I have not checked out any research whether the correction is maintained long term-meaning years later. Have you found anything on that?

Also the link on Christa Schrotth does not work once it is up.

Karen

[Scolio]

At PubMed, search on:

weiss hr scoliosis

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

He is the son of Christa Lehnert-Schroth (1st husband) and current director of the German clinic. A couple of his article are about maintenance or progression.

[gerbo]

being the director of one of the main german clinics, he has a financial interest. This must be taken into account when judging his published work!