Long Term Study Shows Improvement of Scoliosis with Chiropractic

The Journal of Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health published a follow-up study on February 2, 2017, showing the long-term improvement of scoliosis with chiropractic. This study was the second of two studies that tracked the long-term progress of patients who had participated in an earlier scoliosis study.

The original study looked at 36 subjects with scoliosis and followed their initial progress of correction with chiropractic care. This study reviewed those cases and looked long-term to see how the chiropractic care had an effect over a longer period of time.

The researchers noted that adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) affects 2-4% of children between the ages of 10-16 years. Idiopathic scoliosis is the largest category of scoliosis. The medical treatment for this condition is usually bracing, or in more severe cases surgery.

In prior studies, bracing was shown to be of limited benefit with several major studies showing that, over the long-term, the patient's scoliosis continued to get worse. Surgery for scoliosis is a severe risky process with results being mixed. The cases where the surgery is unsuccessful leave the patients with significant health issues. In the opinion of many, surgery should be only considered in the most extreme cases and as a last resort.

A number of chiropractic studies have shown variable degrees of correction of scoliosis from the care. In most all cases, there was minimal risk of harm with the worst case scenario being that the scoliosis continued to progress over time.

This study looked at two groups of subjects. One was a group with scoliosis and one group was less severe and categorized as sub-scoliosis. The ranges of age for the scoliosis group was 7-16 years of age, with the sub-scoliosis group ranging from 4-17 years of age.

The results showed that of the 36 subjects included in the original study, 24 continued care. Of those, only 20 had an additional spinal x-rays taken and therefore could be included in this study review. During the time between the first follow-up x-rays and the final follow-up x-rays, there was a 7.6% reduction on average for those subjects with scoliotic curves, and a further 18% decrease for those who were classified as having sub-scoliotic curves.

The initial study had shown an improvement in the curvatures of most all subjects in the original study. When 20 of those were x-rayed again sometime later, most showed additional long-term correction of their curvatures. The subjects had received care from between one and four years.

On average, the additional correction of curvature for the entire group showed a 12.9% decrease in curvature following the initial care. This change added to the initial change resulted in a 46.8% mean average decrease of the curvatures over the course of care for the entire group. When looked at individually, the researchers noted that the 10 subjects in the scoliosis group had an average correction of 31.5%, while the 10 subjects in the sub-scoliosis group had a average correction of 62.1%.