Scoliosis: Life, Support & Friends

Scoliosis journal published research about relatively lower body mass index and how it is associated with an excess of severe truncal asymmetry in healthy adolescents: do white adipose tissue, leptin, hypothalamus and sympathetic nervous system influence truncal growth asymmetry? Authors: Theodoros B Grivas, R GEOFFREY Burwell, Constantinos Mihas, Elias S Vasiliadis, Georgios Triantafyllopoulos and Angelos Kaspiris Background In healthy adolescents normal back shape asymmetry, here termed truncal asymmetry (TA), is evaluated by higher and lower subsets of BMI. The study was initiated after research on girls with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) showed that higher and lower BMI subsets discriminated patterns of skeletal maturation and asymmetry unexplained by existing theories of pathogenesis leading to a new interpretation which has therapeutic implications (double neuro-osseous theory). Methods 5953 adolescents age 11-17 years (boys 2939, girls 3014) were examined in a school scr...

Scoliosis Journal recently posted about unspecific chronic low back pain - a simple functional classification tested in a case series of patients with spinal deformities Authors: Hans-Rudolf Weiss and Mario Werkmann Published: 17 February 2009 Background Up to now, chronic low back pain without radicular symptoms are not classified and attributed in international literature as being "unspecific". For specific bracing of this group of patients suffering from low back pain we use simple physical tests to predict the brace type the patient might benefit from. Based on these physical tests we have developed a simple functional classification of "unspecific" low back pain in patients with spinal deformities. Methods Between January 2006 and July 2007 we have tested 130 patients (116 females and 14 males) with spinal deformities (average age 45 years, ranging from 14 years to 69) and chronic unspecific low back pain (pain for > 24 months) after the indication for bra...