SCOLIOSIS – CURVING OF THE SPINE

Although no one in my family has scoliosis, I went to attend this brief talk to understand more about scoliosis, because one of my student has it. My student is 13 years old.  It seems it runs in her family.  Heard from her mum that two daughters have it together with their dad.  That means, a total of three in the family of six have it.  So sad. 

Scoliosis is the curving of the spine.  Our spine has twenty four moveable bones, stacked in a column of bony blocks that sit on top of each other and separated by discs and joints. The bones are joined together with ligaments and muscles that run across the joints and discs.

The role of the spine is to support the body and provide it with mobility so that we can bend and twist in all directions and at the same time protect spinal cord and nerves that run through it.  Above all it has to last a lifetime!!

The spine is highly vulnerable and susceptible to trauma and other disorders like repetitive strain and poor posture.  As a result, the spine can become misligned and unstable and this may cause irritation of the spinal nerves, muscles, joints and ligaments leading to:

HEADACHES, MIGRAINES, NECK PAINS, SHOULDER PAINS, LOWER BACK PAINS.. . . .

It is therefore, essential for us to maintain our spine in good health and good condition.  Otherwise our delicate spine will start to crumble leading to degenerative changes like inflamed joints, bone spurs, ruptured discs,  …

It affects more girls than boys, partly due to hormones.  Most of them face this problem when they reach puberty period when there is sudden growth.  Doctors use the Adam test.

People with back problem can either go for surgery where they put metal rods inside the body to prevent the spine from curving, wear back braces that can be extremely uncomfortable due to sweat, itch, pain and painful blisters. Or go for collective manual therapy of safe spinal adjustments, muscle relaxation tehniques and safe corrective exercises; in some cases electrotherapy is used to get a complete treatment regime.  Some use the shaking of body method – to loosen the muscles and bones, putting or wearing weights on specific parts of the body to make the body balance just like an olden scale. Example, if the left side is bent to one side, put weights to the right side, something like this. This will also train the mind to focus.

If the person is too old, there is no way you can help much because the bones would have already fused together.