Scoliosis is a disease in which a segment of the spine deviates persistently from the midline of the body, causing the spine to project laterally in a “C” or “S” shape as the main manifestation. Depending on the degree of curvature, the patient’s performance varies. In mild cases, there is usually no obvious abnormality in appearance, but when standing with clothes off or bending forward, asymmetry of the low back on both sides of the spine can be observed at the back. Moderate or above often accompanied by scoliosis side of the rib cage convexity abnormal, commonly known as “razor back”.
Early signs of scoliosis.
The body tilts to one side;
When wearing a shirt, the neckline is not flat and the shoulders are not equal in height;
Thoracic asymmetry;
When sitting or standing, there are folds on one side of the waist but not on the other side;
When lying flat, the legs are not the same;
Parents can follow the following examination methods.
Method IU ask the child to stand straight with hands down and use fingers to feel from the child’s 7th cervical vertebra down the spine to the lumbosacral area to see if it is straight.
Method 2: Ask the child to bend forward and observe from behind whether the two sides of the back are symmetrical and whether there is a bulge on one side and a depression on the other. If a problem is suspected, further spinal surgery is required.
The dangers of scoliosis.
Hazard one: affects the physical appearance of the child
Scoliosis is difficult to detect early, and most of the deformities are obvious, such as curvature of the spine, asymmetrical bulging of the back, unequal height of the shoulders and unequal length of the legs, and the scoliosis at this stage has already significantly affected the physical beauty of the child.
Harm two: hinder the growth of height
Once scoliosis occurs, children, especially adolescents, are prone to grow taller and become “crooked”, and the curved spine leads to abnormal spinal biology, which is detrimental to height development. For moderate to severe children after surgery can generally increase the height of 8-10cm.
Hazard 3: Affects mental health
Scoliosis causes deformity so that many children have a strong inferiority complex, patients and families often need to bear great psychological pressure, seriously affecting the child’s mental health. For fear of other people’s jokes and stigmatization, afraid to wear reflect
Because of the fear of other people’s jokes and stigmatization, they dare not wear beautiful fashion that reflects the beauty of the body, and rarely or not dare to participate in bodybuilding and sports, such as swimming.
Hazard three: affect the function of internal organs
Many people mistakenly believe that spinal problems do not affect the internal organs, in fact, scoliosis will also affect the child’s heart and lung health! The curvature of the thoracic segment may compress the lungs, resulting in reduced lung function and respiratory difficulties, and as the scoliosis increases, the compression of the cardiovascular system leads to circulatory disorders, severely limiting the activities of the child.
Hazard 4: Impact on life expectancy
As mentioned above, the health of children with severe scoliosis is greatly impaired, and in the long run, there is a risk of lifelong paralysis, a significant decrease in quality of life, and an average life expectancy shorter than normal.
Did you know?
1. 1-3% of adolescents suffer from scoliosis
2, 25% of scoliosis patients need further treatment
3, 10% of scoliosis patients need surgery
4, most scoliosis occurs between the ages of 11 and 16
5, more than 90% of scoliosis are structural, correcting poor posture and movement will not help
6, the brace is the only effective non-surgical treatment for scoliosis
7, the best time to treat scoliosis is before skeletal maturity, surgery is also the best to 14 years old, not more than 18 years old
Scoliosis treatment guidelines
The treatment of scoliosis, depending on the severity, the methods taken are different, including observation, conservative, brace, surgery, with reference to the results of foreign advanced experience, we recommend.
1, for very mild scoliosis, scoliosis angle less than ten degrees, usually observation
2, for ten degrees to twenty degrees, the use of elastic flexibility brace fixed, with postural correction
3.For those between twenty degrees and forty-five degrees, use rigid brace fixation
4.For those who are over 45 degrees, surgery is recommended
Warm reminder.
1, the prevention of scoliosis should start from pregnancy, the mother’s pregnancy is a critical period of fetal formation and development, adverse drugs and diseases may induce abnormal spinal development;
2, the process of childbirth to prevent abnormal pulling rotation of the spine caused by injury;
3, infants should not stand or toddler too early;
4, the development of good sitting and living habits to prevent non-structural scoliosis;
5, 11 to 16 years old children have a high probability of scoliosis, progressing rapidly, during this period parents should be particularly careful to observe;
6, scoliosis is not terrible, parents should not panic about it, not to blindly seek medical advice, need to go to the regular hospital spine specialist, receive regular diagnosis and treatment;
7, conservative treatment, brace is the only effective measures proven by the International Scoliosis Research Institute. Single bar, massage and other methods of scoliosis correction and prevention of progress has little effect;
8, parents should not give their children a brace as soon as scoliosis is found, inappropriate use of braces will have a greater negative impact on the child, more than 25 degrees of scoliosis before the need for brace correction;
9, for children with scoliosis who have reached the indications for surgery, surgery should be selected as early as possible.