Regression of Juvenile Idiopathic Scoliosis

[Celia Vogel]

Is this possible, you ask? We normally read of the inevitable progression of juvenile scoliosis and it seems to be a given that juvenile scoliosis will at some point deteriorate to surgical levels. According to the following article, not so! In summary, the authors state that even though 20% of scoliosis cases are known to have an underlying cause which could be found through an MRI, the remaining 80% of unknown "idiopathic" cases are likely to be postural in nature and should be regarded as a biomechanical deformity regardless of initiating factors. Like many other researchers, they consider the classification of idiopathic scoliosis into the three distinct infantile/juvenile/adolescent groups as "arbitrary" and should not preclude the possibility that juvenile or even adolescent scoliosis could have originated much earlier or even in utero.


http://www.scoliosis-support.org/uploads/juvenile.pdf

[jillw]

Thanks for posting this Celia - interesting. I wish there was more research like this into juvenile/infantile scoliosis. Its tough since the vast majority of research is aimed at adolescents and specifically excludes the results related to juveniles.

How easy it would be to incorporate monkey bars into the routine! (I seem to recall you mentioning that in the past). My daughter has never been a real monkey bars person because she doesn't quite have it down, but now we have motivation to get out there more frequently...even if we start out with her just hanging a little bit! (further food for thought is avoiding activities like horseback riding; we've been told that she didn't need to restrict activities at all.... I'm not going to forbid hopping on the bouncey bounce from time to time, but I guess I won't encourage taking up the sport of horseback riding!)

[Celia Vogel]

Jill,

I thought I read in one of the threads on the NSF that hippotherapy was supposed to be good for scoliosis???? That was a bit of a shock! I'm afraid to do anything until I see it in print from a medical doctor :p Avoidance of repetitive jumping up and down movements, weight lifting, and any vibrational exposure was clear however the following encouraged exercises was a bit vague:

"repeated lateral flexion of the trunk to the left (convex side) when sitting, standing, or supine which tends to reverse vertebral torsion and reduce the primary curve with no bending to the concave side, (iii) lying supine with hips and knees flexed and abducting and adducting both hips against moderate resistance provided by a parent"

[jillw]

Agree - not sure exactly what they had the child doing. I figured a little later when I had time I'd think about it more (and look up some of the words' meanings!)

I didn't realize there was a name (hippotherapy) for horse riding related treatment. I'm learning a whole lot of new somethings every day now! My niece is autistic and she gets hippotherapy (now that I know the official name) ;)

[Celia Vogel]

When I first heard of hippo-therapy, I thought it had something to do with hippopotamuses!! Those hippies are deadly. :eek:

If scoliosis progression is postural in nature and a bio-mechanical deformity which conforms to the Vicious Cycle Hypotheses, how would a blood test predict who is at risk of progressing and who isn't? I read that doctors are working on a blood test?

[jillw]

Good question....maybe the blood test could reveal a genetic marker which indicated a propensity to develop a biomechanical deformity????? The sooner they get the answers the better-I'm holding my breath about what the future holds for my other child....