Scoliosis: Life, Support & Friends

As we seem to be blogging about people raising money of late, Laura pone of our very own moderators on the How To Look Good Twisted fan page, sent me some details of other people who are raising money for the SCF. Teamscoliosis will be running 13.1 miles which starts and finishes at the O2 Arena, London, 28th October, 2012. The people who are running this 13 miles were inspired to do this by one of our very own Moderators, Laura Campbell. They said "Our friend Laura has suffered with scoliosis since she was 13. At 18 her curve had progressed to 72 degrees and she underwent 10 hours of major life threatening surgery at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, when surgeons drilled titanium rods and screws into her spine to straighten it. After three days in intensive care and a week in hospital, Laura made a great recovery. However, she has since broken her back twice and two years ago her spine showed further signs of curving. She has recently had to have three m...

Dan Bell contact me via email to ask if we can share the news about the fund raising he and his girlfriend Nichola Stott will be doing for Scoliosis Research. They will be putting on their running shoes to raise money for the Scoliosis Campaign Fund. Dan had corrective surgery at the age of 13 to correct Scoliosis which is curvature of the spine. The operation involved the removal of 6 discs and the spine being fused, along with 2 titanium rods inserted in his back. "This event is all about giving a little back to a charity that does great work and also to raise some awareness of the condition. We really hope you can donate even a small amount in an effort to hit our target." On Saturday 10th November Dan will be taking part in the Brooks Hell Runner Down South, The Brooks HellRunner Hell Down South takes place at Longmoor Military Training Camp, near Bordon in Hampshire. Brooks HellRunner offers trail running at its toughest and most enjoyable. 10 -12 miles...

Well, it's been a while. I was fortunate to finally obtain full time employment outside of the retail sector (gasp) which has made earning money a bit easier on my spine. It has been a sad couple weeks for reasons I won't go into right now. Instead, I want to present you lovely folks with a bit of information. See, I lost my insurance coverage in April. Problematic, as I am a 'pre-existing condition' felon, and as such, the plans available to me through my regional insurance companies are limited. And do any of them cover my most important, most expensive medication? No, because that would make sense. So, since April I have been on a crusade to find coverage for my BuTrans patches. You think it wouldn't be hard, given that patches are more difficult to abuse and they provide long term (a week!) coverage that is delivered in even strides. None of the up and down of oral medications. BuTrans really improved my life when I began taking it, which says a lot given ho...

Sarah who is a member of our How To Look Good twisted Fan Page on Facebook, wanted to share some news with us about a new project they are undertaking with another not for profit organisation Simple Stuff Works CIC - they are looking to support four young people to use therapeutic night positioning. There is no cost to the individuals involved (they are setting aside just under £10k for the project to include all equipment) About PosturalCare We are looking for FOUR young people with idiopathic scoliosis to work with us on a fully funded project. BACK TO BASICS is just that, we want to see what happens when we address a really basic element of a person’s day - the position they sleep in. Young people spend on average three times longer in bed than they do in school, if it makes sense to you to think about this time then please read on! Back to Basics is a small, exciting project being funded by 2 Social Enterprises, Postural Care CIC and Simple Stuff Works CIC. Both ...

ScoliosisJournal recently reported about soft braces in the treatment of AIS - Review the literature and description of a new approach Authors: Hans-Rudlof Weiss and Mario Werkmann Background The use of soft braces to treat scoliosis has been described by Fischer as early as 1876. With the help of elastic straps, as the authors suggested, a corrective movement for individual curve patterns should be maintained in order to inhibit curve progression. Today this concept has been revived besides soft 3 point pressure systems. Some shortcomings have been revealed in literature in comparison with hard braces, however the concept of improving quality of life of a patient while under brace treatment should furtherly be considered as valuable. Purpose of this review is to gather the body of evidence existent for the use of soft braces and to present recent developments. Method A review of literature as available on Pub Med was performed using the key words ,scoliosis ...

ScoliosisJournal reported recently about Adolescents, bracing and the results from an everyday clinic using Thermobrace. Authors: Sabrina Donzelli, Fabio Zaina and Stefano Negrini Background The effectiveness of bracing relies on the quality of the brace, compliance of the patient, and some disease factors. Patients and parents tend to overestimate adherence, so an objective assessment of compliance has been developed through the use of heat sensors. In 2010 we started the everyday clinical use of a temperature sensor, and the aim of this study is to present our initial results. Methods Population: A prospective cohort of 68 scoliosis patients that finished at least 4 months of brace treatment on March 31, 2011: 48 at their first evaluation (79% females, age 14.2+/-2.4) and 20 already in treatment. Treatment: Bracing (SPoRT concept); physiotherapic specific exercises (SEAS School); team approach according to the SOSORT Bracing Management Guidelines. M...

ScoliosisJournal recently reported about Cotrel-dubousset instrumentation for the correction of AIS. Long term results with an unexpected high revision rate. Authors: Franz Mueller and Herbert Gluch Background For many years, the CD instrumentation has been regarded as the standard device for the surgical correction of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS). Nevertheless, scientific long-term results on this procedure are rare. Therefore, we conducted a retrospective follow-up study of patients treated for AIS with CD instrumentation and spondylodesis. Methods A total of 40 patients with AIS underwent CD instrumentation in our department within 3 years and between 1990 and 1992. For the retrospective analysis, first all the patient documents were reviewed, and pre-/postoperative X-ray images as well as those at the latest follow-up were analysed. Furthermore, it was attempted to conduct a clinical survey using the SRS-24 questionnaire, which was sent to the pat...