Scoliosis Corrected with Chiropractic: A Case Study

On September 19, 2022, the Journal of Pediatric, Maternal & Family Health Chiropractic published the results of a case study showing that chiropractic care had helped correct scoliosis in a child. Scoliosis is a sideways curvature of the spine when viewed from either the back or the front.

There are normal curvatures to the spine when viewed from the side. The neck should have a curve forward, the mid back should curve backward, and the lower back should curve inward. When viewed from the back or front, the spin should appear straight.

There are approximately 3 million new cases of scoliosis diagnosed in children each year which represents about 3-5% of the pediatric population. Scoliosis is much more common in girls and is most commonly found in adolescents between the ages of 10 and 12 years of age. When the cause is not known to be from a disease or injury, it is referred to as idiopathic scoliosis.

Scoliosis is measured on x-rays in degrees. A 10-degree curvature is considered medically significant, but only a small percentage of these are ever treated. When the curvature is over 40-degrees, the typical medical treatment can include surgery to insert metal rods into the child’s back to hold the spine in a straighter position.

In this case, a 5-year-old girl was brought to the chiropractor because she was suffering with headaches and having trouble sleeping. A chiropractic examination with spinal x-rays was performed and it was discovered that the girl had a scoliosis that measured 13-degrees. Subluxations were also present in the child’s spine. Specific chiropractic adjustments were then started.

After 28 days, a reassessment was performed to see the progress to that point. The study shows that the girl's sleep had improved by 30% and she had experienced a reduction in headache frequency and intensity. A follow-up set of spinal x-rays showed that the girls scoliosis had reduced from a 13 degree curvature down to 0 degrees, in essence a total correction.

In their conclusion the authors of the study wrote, "Objective, quantifiable measures of scoliosis were improved in a relatively brief amount of time with conservative utilization of the (specific) chiropractic analysis to address vertebral subluxation. No other modalities or treatments were necessary to produce improvement in thoracolumbar scoliosis measurements."