Scoliosis Treatment: How Physical Therapy Can Help

Scoliosis treatment that combines different modalities can be easily customized to address the specifics of a patient's condition and curvature type. Physical therapy can be important both in terms of preparing the spine for treatment, and in increasing the spine's support and stability through muscle strengthening.

Scoliosis treatment can be multifaceted; in fact, integration is at the forefront of a non surgical treatment response. Scoliosis can be highly treatable, particularly when proactive treatment is applied early on. Physical therapy can help address pain, poor posture, unbalanced and weak muscles.

While physical therapy can help address scoliosis, it needs to be scoliosis-specific; the complex nature of scoliosis is beyond the scope of general physical therapy.

General vs Scoliosis-Specific Physical Therapy

General physical therapy addresses a number of musculoskeletal issues using a variety of techniques: exercises, stretches, manual therapy, hot/cold therapy, and the goal is to improve mobility, reduce pain, and strengthen muscles following injury or surgical treatment.

Physical therapy can also address postural issues and teach postural awareness, something that's important for people with scoliosis.

So what's the difference between general and scoliosis-specific exercises and physical therapy?

Scoliosis is a complex 3-dimensional spinal condition that causes the spine to bend unnaturally to the side and twist from back to front, front to back; this is a structural issue.

While physical therapy can help keep the spine and its surrounding muscles loose and strong, when it comes to scoliosis treatment, a lot more is needed.

Scoliosis treatment has to address the condition's underlying structural nature, along with its progressive nature; most cases of scoliosis will get worse over time.

Scoliosis treatment has to affect the spine, the spine's surrounding muscles, nerves, and the entire body because the effects of scoliosis can be widespread.

A misaligned spine can disrupt the body's symmetry from the head to the feet, and scoliosis-specific physical therapy can include corrective exercises that can help with treatment.

Scoliosis Exercises and Spinal Mobility

There was a time when the place of exercise in scoliosis treatment was questioned, but with the development of SEAS (scientific exercises approach to scoliosis) and the Schroth method, for example, results have shown that scoliosis can be highly responsive to an exercise-based approach to treatment.

Scoliosis-specific exercises as part of scoliosis-specific physical therapy and treatment is a key facet of non surgical scoliosis treatment and can augment corrective treatment results in a number of ways.

Scoliosis exercises can help improve spinal mobility, muscle strength, and balance.

A spine that's flexible is one that will be more responsive to treatment, and a scoliosis-specific physical therapist will focus on specific exercises for scoliosis that can increase the spine's flexibility.

Progression means the size of the unnatural spinal curve is increasing, and this makes the spine increasingly rigid, so a corrective exercise program can be applied to establish a baseline level of spinal flexibility in patients who have experienced significant progression prior to being diagnosed and/or starting treatment.

It's important that patients have the ability to perform key exercises as part of treatment, and physical therapy can help prepare the spine for treatment, making it more responsive to different disciplines, such as chiropractic treatment.

Physical Therapy and Muscle Strengthening

When the spine has its healthy and natural curves in place, its vertebrae are aligned in a straight and neutral position as they should be, but a misaligned spine can cause a number of issues.

It's not just the spine that has to maintain its natural curves and alignment; it's up to the spine's surrounding muscles to provide it with support and stability.

Physical Therapy can help to strengthen muscles; this takes pressure off the spine and can help improve and support structural changes worked towards through other treatment disciplines.

In addition, a scoliosis-specific physical therapist will understand the muscles to target specific to each patient's body and curvature type.

Physical Therapy and Muscular Symmetry

Scoliosis is an asymmetrical condition that disrupts the body's symmetry, and this also includes muscle balance.

Scoliosis can be associated with a muscular imbalance as the unnaturally-curved spine can pull its surrounding muscles in different directions; the muscles on one side of the spine can become tight and sore from overuse, while muscles on the opposite side can become weak from underuse.

A muscle imbalance can worsen the effects of scoliosis and can mean a spine that's not properly supported and stabilized.

A scoliosis-specific physical therapist will understand the effects that scoliosis can have on the spine's surrounding muscles and will know how to address a scoliosis-related muscular imbalance to restore muscle symmetry.

To properly address a scoliosis muscular imbalance, a scoliosis physical therapist is necessary because they fully understand how different severity levels of scoliosis and different curvature types can affect the spine's surrounding muscles.

Postural Awareness and Remodeling

Poor posture is an effect of scoliosis, and postural control can help.

In children, postural changes are the main effect as the condition disrupts the body's overall symmetry.

Physical therapy can involve postural awareness and remodeling, and this is often achieved through the use of mirror-image corrective exercises that teach patients to be aware of how they are holding their spines and bodies.

The way a spine is held throughout the day during movement, rest, and strenuous activity can affect its overall health, and physical therapy and exercise-based scoliosis treatment can empower patients with postural awareness.

Corrective exercises can be an important part of rehabilitating the spine, and patients taught a customized home exercise program can help further heal and stabilize the spine for long-term improvement to spinal mobility and health.

Pain Relief

While not everyone experiences scoliosis pain, for those that do, pain management is a focus of treatment.

Most often, adult scoliosis is painful because scoliosis doesn't become a compressive condition until skeletal maturity has been reached.

Compression is uneven pressure and can cause back pain, muscle pain, and nerve pain, and physical therapy can help counteract increasing spinal rigidity and related back pain.

A physical therapist can design a customized exercise program to reduce muscle pain by restoring muscle strength and balance because if left unaddressed, painful muscle spasms can develop.

Treatment that addresses the condition's underlying structural nature can also help counteract compression by taking pressure off the spine's surrounding muscles and nerves; as an unnatural spinal curve is reduced in size, so too are the condition's uneven forces, and their effects, including pain.

Treatment Intensity

An additional difference between general and scoliosis-specific physical therapy is the treatment intensity.

While general physical therapy can involve a series of sessions that take place over time for gradual improvement, scoliosis physical therapy has time constraints so is more intense.

As a progressive condition triggered by growth, childhood scoliosis treatment in particular has the pressure of having to counteract the condition's progressive nature during the constant trigger of growth spurts occurring.

Scoliosis treatment can involve short bursts of high-intensity physical therapy sessions because that's what the complex nature of scoliosis requires.

And when combined with additional corrective treatment disciplines such as condition-specific chiropractic treatment, corrective bracing, and rehabilitation, physical therapy treatment can be a powerful means of improving spinal health and the health of its surrounding muscles.

It's important for patients to understand that no single treatment discipline can address the complexity of scoliosis, but when integrated into a proactive treatment plan, there are fewer limits to what non surgical scoliosis treatment can achieve.

Conclusion

Here at the Scoliosis Reduction Center®, patients benefit from an integrative treatment approach that combines the power of multiple scoliosis treatment disciplines for maximum possible correction.

Scoliosis can develop in the cervical spine, the thoracic spine, or the lumbar spine, and in some cases of a combined scoliosis, the unnatural spinal curve can develop in two sections: thoracolumbar scoliosis, for example.

Scoliosis introduces uneven forces to the spine, its surroundings, and the entire body, and treatment has to address curve progression, pain, postural changes, and the structural nature of the scoliotic spinal curve.

Scoliosis physical therapy can help augment corrective treatment results by improving spinal mobility, strength, and the strength and balance of the spine's surrounding muscles; this can improve the spine's balance, stability, and proper alignment.

Chiropractic treatment can work towards realigning the spine through manual adjustments and a variety of techniques, and strong stomach muscles and back muscles can support structural changes and curvature reductions.

An abnormal lateral curvature of the spine needs treatment, and as a progressive condition, treatment has to work towards counteracting the condition's nature to get worse over time and with growth.

The best way to minimize the potential effects of scoliosis is to treat conditions proactively for a better quality of life.