Chiropractor Puyallup Wa | How Much Do You Know About Scoliosis?

Here's a quick scoliosis quiz - see how many answers you have correct by reading the article below:

Question 1: What is the exact cause of scoliosis?
Question 2: Do you know at least one visual indicator of scoliosis?
Question 3: Who is at greater risk of developing scoliosis, males or females?

Scoliosis Facts at a Glance -

By medical definition, scoliosis is a sideways curving of the spine, with no exact cause.
Those who develop scoliosis can have mild cases that are generally pain free, to severe cases where the condition is almost completely disabling.

Visual suggestions that a person may be dealing with scoliosis are:
"uneven shoulders
"the appearance of one shoulder blade more than the other
"an uneven waist and/or
"hips that appear to tilt instead of lying perfectly horizontal

Currently less than 10% of the United States population is categorized with having a severe scoliosis development. In this percentage there are more females than males that have the diagnosis.

The Benefit of Keeping those Scheduled Doctor Appointments -

As parents, it's easy to rest in the comfort of coughless nights and healthy appetites when a regular doctor's appointment is missed. Without the need of receiving scheduled vaccinations many mothers and fathers would rarely if ever find time to squeeze in that doctor visit.

Yet, it's keeping up with regular medical visits that could help you detect what could be the early stages of scoliosis.

It is true that adults can develop the condition, but more than likely if scoliosis is going to occur it's going to become present during the ages of 3 to 10 years old. This is why those routine checkups are important!

A person diagnosed with scoliosis can have one of the four forms:

-congenital scoliosis, which is brought on by bone abnormality at birth.
-neuromuscular scoliosis that is caused by abnormal muscles or nerves.
-degenerative scoliosis, which can be a result of a traumatic injury like those from car wrecks, or
-idiopathic scoliosis, which is one that has yet to have a direct cause, but is generally linked to one's family genes.

Knowing sooner than later if you or your loved one is developing a case of scoliosis is the best way to prevent your (or their) quality of life from being threatened.

Suggested Treatments for Scoliosis -

For young children who are diagnosed with a form of scoliosis it can be suggested that they wear a brace. The brace can be reasonably effective, but is also proven to be an initial stage to correction when the curve is greater than 40 degrees.

The next step is then surgery, which can be performed at early ages like 13, 14 or 15. However, surgery usually includes spinal fusion which is the combining of vertebrae, so afterwards a brace is still recommended.

Several hundred patients are able to live their life as functionally as anyone else after receiving spinal surgery. For both the women and men the only telltale sign that they even bear the condition may be the surgery scar, or slightly noticeable physical indicators.

Most local health chiropractic offices will readily admit that certain procedures and suggestions alone won't be the ultimate remedy to scoliosis. Instead, it's the regular visits after the corrective surgery, and applying the suggested recommendations that make medical chiropractors invaluable to scoliosis patients.