This is yet another topic surrounded
by controversies. There is a good chance you or someone you know (perhaps your
kid in elementary school) has been diagnosed by Scoliosis. Scoliosis is an
abnormal curvature of the spine seen in X-rays demonstrated by the picture
below. There are different degrees of this curvature which can be anywhere from
very mild to life threatening.
The life threatening angles are
usually rare and are serious due to the pressure they exert on neighbouring
organs and the spinal cord. These will generally require a spinal fusion surgery with a good chance in resolving the problem.
The controversies are surrounding the curvatures that require conservative
treatments (non-surgical), in order to fix the curvature and/or prevent the
curve from progressing further.
Last year I had the privilege to
be a guest at a hospital designated for patients with scoliosis in the city of Bad Sobernheim, Germany. In this
hospital, kids usually around age 16 or younger (since it is easier to fix the
curvature before full spinal maturity), were treated for 3 weeks by
practitioners certified in Schroth Method (only 3 practitioners in Canada) and
specific Cheneau braces
customized to each person. The success rate of the hospital is over 90% based
on the orthopedic surgeon running the place.
So why can’t we have our kids
treated here in North America? The answer is really short; money! Everything in
Germany is paid by their public insurance; the cost of the brace by itself in North
America would be around $15,000, so what do we do here, you guessed it;
surgery!
Again to be clear, conservative
treatments may help with the management of pain, and many patients may have
mild scoliosis which was discovered “accidently” on x-ray which may not be
causing their current symptoms; but the treatments I discussed above will be
able to children in Europe and not our children due to our pathetic public
insurance.
Please contact me with any questions you may have,
Dr. Masoumi
www.facebook.com/drmasoumi
