What Does Scoliosis Look Like: Appearance and Signs

Scoliosis can cause a number of effects felt throughout the body, and the main symptom of scoliosis can differ among various age groups. In children, the main effect of scoliosis involves postural changes, and in adult scoliosis, the main sign that leads to a diagnosis is pain.

Scoliosis causes the spine to bend and twist unnaturally. What scoliosis looks like can mean recognizing its early signs, leading to early detection and intervention. The earliest signs of scoliosis are often uneven shoulders and hips.

There are never treatment guarantees, but the sooner treatment is started, the more effective non-surgical treatment can be.

Understanding Scoliosis

Scoliosis causes the spine to bend unnaturally to the side and rotate, and the rotation makes it a complex 3-dimensional condition.

Scoliosis curves can be highly responsive to treatment, but it depends on a number of factors including patient age, condition type, severity, and the location of the curve within the spine.

As no two cases of scoliosis are the same, treatment plans need to be fully individualized to address the specifics of a patient's body type, posture, symptoms, and condition.

What's most important to understand about scoliosis is that it has a progressive nature, meaning it will get worse over time.

How Bad Can Scoliosis Get?

As a progressive condition, the nature of scoliosis is to get more severe, meaning the size of the unnatural spinal curve will increase over time, making its effects more overt and potentially disruptive, and potentially leading to a surgical recommendation.

Scoliosis ranges in severity from mild scoliosis to moderate scoliosis, severe and very severe curves.

A measurement known as Cobb angle is what condition severity is determined by, and this involves a scoliosis X-ray: needed to diagnose scoliosis by confirming the rotation and that the curve has a minimum Cobb angle of 10 degrees.

The higher a patient's Cobb angle, the more unnaturally tilted the spine's vertebrae are at the curve's apex, and the more severe the condition:

• Mild scoliosis is diagnosed with Cobb angles of between 10 and 25 degrees
• Moderate scoliosis involves curves between 25 and 40 degrees
• Severe scoliosis is diagnosed at 40+ degrees, and scoliosis is considered very severe at 80+ degrees

As you can see from the variance in those numbers, scoliosis ranges widely in severity, and condition severity is a key variable that treatment plans are shaped around.

Treatment plans can't be crafted and treatment options can't be applied, however, until a diagnosis is made, and this is where the signs of scoliosis are important to be aware of.

What Scoliosis Looks Like in Children

Scoliosis affects all ages, but children are diagnosed the most often, and the most common type of scoliosis overall is adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, diagnosed between the ages of 10 years old and reaching skeletal maturity.

The effects of scoliosis in children can become more noticeable quickly because progression is triggered by growth spurts.

Adolescents are the age group most at risk for rapid-phase progression due to the unpredictable growth spurts of puberty.

So the signs of scoliosis in children can become more overt quickly during progression, and in many cases, parents say the postural changes seemed to develop overnight; that's how it can seem if a significant growth spurt occurs that triggers significant progression.

In most cases of childhood scoliosis, the earliest signs of scoliosis are uneven shoulders and hips, and this is because the uneven forces of the condition are disrupting the body's overall symmetry.

Additional postural changes to watch for can include:

• The head not centered over the torso
• An uneven eye line
• Uneven shoulders
• Uneven shoulder blades
• A rib cage arch
• An uneven waistline
• Arms and legs hanging at different lengths

Scoliosis can also cause changes in movement.

Mobility Changes

Scoliosis doesn't just affect the appearance of the body, but how it works.

Movement can be disrupted in a number of ways, and again, the more progression that occurs, the more noticeable these movement changes are likely to be.

In addition to postural changes, and clothing becoming ill-fitting, many people with scoliosis also experience changes to gait, balance, and coordination.

So if postural changes are noticed in a child, watching for movement changes can be further signs of scoliosis.

But what about pain? Isn't pain a common symptom of scoliosis?

Scoliosis Pain: Adult Scoliosis

The main sign of scoliosis in adults is pain.

While adults will also experience postural changes, including a noticeable lean to one side, scoliosis pain is the main symptom that brings adults in to see me for assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.

Scoliosis pain is a part of adult scoliosis, but isn't considered a common symptom of childhood scoliosis because scoliosis doesn't become compressive until skeletal maturity has< been reached and there is no more growth.

In children whose spines are still growing, the constant lengthening motion of growth counteracts the compressive force of the unnatural spinal curve.

While children experience different degrees of muscle pain, compressive back pain and nerve pain are considered signs of adult scoliosis.

Compression is uneven pressure, and it doesn't just affect the spine, causing back pain, but also the spine's surrounding muscles and nerves; in fact, it's pain that radiates into the extremities due to nerve compression that is the main sign of scoliosis in adults.

So scoliosis pain can involve the muscles, the back, and radiating pain throughout the body.

More severe curves will be more painful and complex to treat, hence the benefit of starting treating when curves are small with the goal of keeping them that way.

For both children and adults, the most important part of being diagnosed with scoliosis is deciding the type of treatment approach.

Understanding Scoliosis Treatment Options

While we don't know what causes most cases of scoliosis to develop initially, we know it's growth that makes it progress, and we know how to respond to a diagnosis with treatment.

Scoliosis can be highly treatable, and its effects can be minimized.

Developing scoliosis doesn't have to mean a life of limitation and pain, but the type of treatment chosen will shape the spine's long-term health and function: two factors that affect quality of life.

Scoliosis treatment is about managing an ongoing condition, so regular check ups and monitoring will be part of life with the condition.

There are two main ways to address scoliosis: with surgery or with non-surgical treatment.

What I want patients to understand is that many cases of scoliosis don't need surgery, and the best way to ensure invasive surgery isn't necessary in the future is to start treatment now.

A conservative non-surgical treatment approach is centered around being proactive: working towards preventing progression, increasing condition effects, and the need for invasive surgical treatment.

The Benefits of Proactive Conservative Scoliosis Treatment

There are many benefits associated with non-surgical scoliosis treatment, including a proactive response that's started immediately following a diagnosis.

Conservative treatment is also innovative and integrative so combines the power of multiple different types of scoliosis treatment, meaning that patients of the Scoliosis Reduction Center® benefit from accessing different facets of treatment under one roof.

Conservative treatment options impact conditions on every level through condition-specific chiropractic care, physical therapy, corrective bracing, and rehabilitation.

Non-Surgical Treatment Disciplines

Many children respond well to bracing because a growing spine is flexible and malleable.

Chiropractic care has the goal of realigning the spine and restoring as much of its healthy curves as possible by adjusting the position of the curve's most-tilted vertebrae.

Restoring balance and stability to the spine is important for everyone, but particularly for older adults who are more at risk of injury from falls.

Physical therapy is a focus of non-surgical treatment; it can help improve posture and the spine's surrounding muscle balance and strength.

It's not just the spine that maintains its natural curves and alignment, but also the spine's surrounding muscles, so a spine that's surrounded by strong and balanced muscles is more stable as structural changes achieved through chiropractic adjustments can be supported.

Rehabilitation is about holding treatment results and can involve continued chiropractic care and the prescription of scoliosis-specific exercises so patients can further health and stabilize the spine from home.

Conclusion

Knowing what scoliosis looks like means understanding how it affects the body.

With current estimates at close to seven million people living with scoliosis in the United States alone, awareness is important and can help with early detection.

Early detection doesn't guarantee treatment success, nothing does, but it is associated with it, so why not commit to a proactive treatment response that, when successful, can spare patients the hardships associated with progression, increasing symptoms severity, and invasive surgical treatment.

Scoliosis surgery is a type of spinal fusion and comes with its share of potential risks, side effects, and complications.

The long-term effects of living with a fused spine can include a spine that's less flexible, a back with a reduced range of motion, a painful fusion site, and a spine that's weaker and more vulnerable to injury.

As not all cases of scoliosis require surgery, I encourage patients who find themselves on the path of traditional scoliosis treatment to ensure they are equally informed on the cons of spinal fusion and the merits of non-surgical treatment.

So when it comes to recognizing the early signs of scoliosis in children, these would include changes to posture, gait, and balance, and in addition to postural changes in adults, the main sign of scoliosis, and scoliosis progression, is pain.