I have just spent a fortunate week at Scoliosis Rehab, Inc. for adult scoliosis that I have been literally battling for 25 years. Simply put, the one-on-one care I received from Beth Janssen PT and Patti Orthwein PT was exceptional on all levels. As a seasoned exercise physiologist, Pilates practitioner and psychologist with many years of clinical experience, I was truly impressed with their knowledge, protocol, manual skills and problem solving capabilities.  This was a life altering experience for me.  My quest for the appropriate treatment strategy for my scoliosis has been a long and arduous one.  The Schroth method, taught by Beth and Patti opened my eyes to the gaps in my previous therapies.   Amy Beversdorf, a very gifted Pilates instructor, helped me translate what I had learned into movement patterns on the reformer to reinforce my postural corrections.  

The importance of working with a passionate and caring staff cannot be over emphasized. Scoliosis can affect many levels of being--treatment without sensitivity and heart can be incomplete.  These women listen and have heart!   

At 53 years of age, I have lived with scoliosis for 40 years... in my teens I did exercises and wore a Boston brace for 3 years. My worry was that I would end up like my older sister with a spinal fusion. In my late 20's, my back began to bother me and I searched for a means of finding relief; yoga, swimming, rowing and finally Pilates in my 40's. Pilates offered the most relief, I have found, and I went on-line to look for connections between the two and in that search, stumbled upon the Schroth method. I did not know how I would ever get to a European clinic so you can imagine my delight when I discovered the Scoliosis Rehab Clinic on-line and realized that I could go to Wisconsin instead! The education I received in one week at the Scoliosis Rehab clinic has given me the tools I have looked for since my 20's. Now I don't just manage my pain, I believe I am making actual physical changes to my body.

Beth gave me a detailed description of my anatomy and helped me understand what was going on in the balance between my muscles and my bones. Then both Beth and Patti worked with me to help me find my weak and strong places and how to initiate mental concentration and muscle activation along with breathing to work towards elongating and detorsioning my spine. I also met with Pilate's instructor, Amy, who gave me insight into the intersection of the Schroth work and the Pilates exercises that I have practiced for 7 years. I use the Schroth method that I have learned on an hourly basis. Whenever I am uncomfortable, I check in with my body and apply the corrections that Beth and Patti taught me. Brushing my teeth, waiting for water to boil, sitting here at the computer, driving a car, teaching my Pilates clients, holding a dog, lying in bed, in short, every move I make is informed by the corrections I was taught. It makes a huge difference in my quality of life and my outlook. It is very empowering to be able to help myself and know the anatomical reasons behind the corrections.

I look forward to returning to the Scoliosis Rehab clinic to take the second week of training. I encourage anyone (at any age) with Scoliosis to investigate this method. I can only imagine the results if this had been available to me in my teens. I would like to see this method taught to more American Physical Therapists so that it becomes available to many more people.

From the first minute we walked into the clinic, we felt a great comfort that we had never felt any time we went to the doctor's office to see about TJ's back. The entire staff blessed us from the minute we walked in the door. More than anything, they gave us hope; hope that we could control what we had been made to believe until that point was in the hands of the doctors and fate. It was so great to take fate by the horns! Thank you Beth for taking the initiative to seek out this "revolutionary" therapy. You are changing lives!

Reversing Scoliosis through Schroth and Rigo-Cheneau:
Our Family's Serendipitous Ride

The following paragraphs give an account of our family's eighteen-month-long roller- coaster ride regarding our adolescent daughter's idiopathic scoliosis, which, in a nutshell, went from an initially diagnosed 15 degrees, spiked to 34 degrees nine short months later, and then plummeted to 18 degrees in a subsequent, less-than-seven-month period. While our ride is ongoing, we offer this testimonial both to encourage medical professionals in the United States to investigate clinically and scientifically the over eighty-year-old Schroth method of physical therapy and the complementary Rigo System-Cheneau brace, which work together to reduce the ill-effects of scoliosis, and to give hope to patients and parents confronting this ill-understood and deforming condition.

During our daughter's twelve-year physical examination in late May 2006, her pediatrician noticed an apparently mild scoliotic curvature. A subsequent (May 23, 2006) x-ray confirmed a three-curve, right thoracic, idiopathic scoliosis that measured about 15 degrees, with a slight compensatory lumbar curvature. Our daughter had experienced a rapid, pre-menarchy growth spurt earlier in that calendar year. Her scoliosis, even at this mild stage, was producing an obvious rib hump, observable rotation and unevenness in the height of her hips, forward protrusion of her right shoulder, flaring of both scapulas, and offsetting of her rib cage from her hips.

We requested a referral to an orthopedist, who, after indicating that most scolioses do not progress past an unproblematic (but non-invasively uncorrectable) 20 degrees, prescribed the standard medical approach in the U.S. for a mild-measuring curve: simply monitor it for further progression. At our request, however, the highly regarded and very excellent orthopedist provided us with a prescription for a Boston brace, which when fitted corrected our daughter's curve to about 7 degrees and which we had her wear at night when she slept (and when, according to our understanding, children do most of their growing). Since the scoliosis was mild, and since the pediatrician and orthopedist recommended no treatment at that time, we believed we were going the extra mile in trying to prevent an increase in the curvature, but without subjecting our daughter to an unreasonable amount of discomfort or anxiety. In addition, and with the orthopedist's consent (but not recommendation), we made the decision simultaneously to pursue chiropractic treatment for our daughter in the hope of halting the curving. (She was not experiencing any pain associated with the scoliosis.) She received this treatment three times per week for seven weeks.

At the end of August 2006 - that is, after three months' worth of part-time bracing and chiropractic treatment - an x-ray showed that our daughter's curve had progressed from about 15 degrees to about 26 degrees. We were alarmed, but the orthopedist was still optimistic that the curvature would not progress further. Our daughter continued to wear the Boston brace at night but did not pursue more chiropractic treatment.

In mid-February 2007 (five and one-half months later), another x-ray showed that her curve had continued to progress and now measured about 34 degrees. As our (by this time) nearly 13-year-old daughter was still pre-menarchy, she clearly had more growth spurts ahead; so we became even more concerned about the trajectory she was on and the rapidity of the curve's progression (from 15 to 34 degrees in just nine months' time - and that with at least some degree of treatment). Our daughter's orthopedist instructed that she wear the Boston brace full time from this point on, and she began to do so. We, wanting to do all we could to avoid her needing surgery, began searching for other approaches to arresting the progression of her scoliosis.

Late one night while surfing the internet, we literally just happened upon the Katharina Schroth method of physical therapy for treating scoliosis and over the next few days "connected the dots" to discover the Rigo System-Cheneau brace, which works in tandem with the Schroth method. The published results from Schroth therapy, used in Europe since the 1920s, coupled with the well-reasoned approach of the Rigo-Cheneau brace, captured our attention, since both the physical therapy and the brace address scoliosis three-dimensionally both to straighten the spine and to derotate it. Our daughter's Boston brace merely squeezed her torso like a corset, severely restricted her breathing, and caused pain; the (much more comfortable) Rigo-Cheneau brace (also a hard plastic brace, but a custom-molded one) is made not only to straighten the spine's side-to-side curvature but also to reduce significantly the twisting of the vertebrae that exacerbates the curving, while building in strategically placed voids to allow the lungs to expand when taking in air. These methods (the physical therapy and bracing) seemed to us not only more humane than the watch-and-wait approach and the painfully restrictive Boston bracing, but they also seemed to make eminent sense from a "body-mechanics" point of view. So we approached our daughter's orthopedist with a request for prescriptions for Schroth-method physical therapy and a Rigo-Cheneau brace. Though unconvinced that the methods would produce a better result than the conventional Boston brace worn full time, the orthopedist complied with our request to give the methods a try.

In mid-April 2007, our daughter (still pre-menarchy, with still-immature bones [of a Risser score of 1]) was fitted with a custom-molded Rigo-Cheneau brace, which according to x-rays corrected her 34-degree curve to 10 degrees and began derotating her spine. Mr. Luke Stikeleather, of Orthotic Solutions in Fairfax, Virginia/Rockville, Maryland, made this brace and fitted her with it.

Then, during the first two weeks of May 2007, our daughter received intensive (four hours per day), one-on-one training in an individualized program of Schroth method physical therapy specifically addressing her particular curvature. She received this training primarily from Ms. Beth Janssen, P.T., at Scoliosis Rehab Inc. in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, which opened in 2006 as the first and only clinic in the U.S. currently devoted solely to Schroth-method physical therapy for scoliosis and other curvatures of the spine. (Mrs. Janssen is the second-longest-standing Schroth therapist in the U.S., having received her Schroth certification in 2003 after being trained by Dr. Manuel Rigo, who directs the Schroth clinic in Barcelona, Spain, and who developed the Rigo-System Cheneau brace.)

Our daughter began practicing her 30-60 minute Schroth routine daily after returning home in mid-May and continues to do so on the average of at least six days per week. She wears the Rigo-Cheneau brace for an average of 22-23 hours per day and removes it only to exercise and to shower. (The "prescription" recommended for exercising is usually 30 minutes per day, five days per week, with the wearing of the brace being recommended at about 22 hours per day.) At our election, our daughter returned to Scoliosis Rehab Inc. in August 2007 (three months after receiving her initial intensive training) for a weeklong refresher class (with three other adolescent scoliosis patients) to ensure that she was doing her exercises correctly, to "tweak" her routine, and to add several advanced exercises to her repertoire. Ms. Patti Orthwein, P.T. (also of Scoliosis Rehab Inc.) and Ms. Janssen conducted these classes.

On November 6, after just over six months of this two-pronged treatment, our daughter's out-of-brace x-ray showed that her scoliosis had not only been arrested but had actually been dramatically reduced - from 34 degrees to just 18 degrees, coupled with significant improvement in the rotational orientation of her vertebrae. Her clinical evaluation by the orthopedist confirmed that the obvious physical assymetry, at its height the preceding February, was also dramatically reduced in every respect (rib humping, unevenness and rotation of the hips, protruding right shoulder, and offsetting of the rib cage from the hips). The orthopedist acknowledged the clear effectiveness of the treatment in our daughter's case and prescribed her continued pursuit of it, while even allowing that the treatment might represent an "innovation" (in the U.S.).

As our daughter has grown some three to four inches since receiving her first Rigo-Cheneau brace, she has recently been fitted with a new one. (Incidentally, our insurance company has covered the entire cost of the brace [with prescriptions and an initial letter of medical necessity, the latter provided by her pediatrician] and has also covered the cost of her physical therapy [with the same accompanying documentation].) She will almost certainly avoid the need for surgery, has dramatically improved the look of her body from the point of view of physical symmetry, and now possesses the tools for maintaining a healthy spine and a strong body able to hold itself in its "corrected" position after the completion of her bracing treatment and physical growth. Her dramatic improvement has bolstered her resolve to continue the treatment, despite the sometimes discouraging challenge (especially to an adolescent girl) of finding clothing that lessens the obviousness of the brace and the seeming drudgery of the daily exercises. (From a parental point of view, our daughter's firsthand experience of the rewards of self-discipline has proven a positive byproduct of this outwardly negative challenge and one that in the future should serve her well in other areas of life.)