hello posture friends today's topic is scoliosis and an amazing breakthrough in
fusionless surgery i'm dr. paula moore the online posture
doctor and fellow scoliosis warrior shoutout to my curvy friends
@scoliosiswarriors on facebook idiopathic scoliosis is the most common
spinal deformity in children we don't really know what causes it but given the
age of diagnosis there's likely a strong hormonal link treatments for scoliosis
in kids includes traction and bracing designed to prevent progression of the
deformity surgery is often the treatment of choice for curves greater than 45
degrees while still growing because of the organ complications the type of
surgery involved is spinal fusion where metal rods hooks wires or screws are
attached to the curved part of the back and the spine is then strengthened ouch
so why fuse the segments well it's the curved vertebra that are fused together
to form one single solid bone and that stops them growing and prevents the
curve from getting worse
permanent fusion in the curved segments now means there's less mobility in the
back and this leads to poor function in activities like competitive sports
fusion also causes degenerative changes in the segments above and below the
fusion and this often leads to chronic back pain and later in life spinal
stenosis think severe nerve impingement and more pain scoliosis really sucks but
until now fusion has been the only option for surgery with fusion the
practice is to stop growth in the curved section but there's a new technique that
actually uses the growth in the curved section to correct the curve how cool is
that the new technique is called Vertebral Body Tethering VBT uses screws
that are placed into the curved section of the spine and a flexible cord called
a Tether the surgeon applies tension to the cord
to partially straighten out the spine and then after surgery the Tether
continues to straighten the spine while the child is growing amazing right the
way vbt works is by slowing the growth on the convex side and decompressing the
concave side of the vertebra to allow for growth on that side it took some
real digging but I found the actual FDA approval letter for the Tether device
and I'll put a link in the description below to that letter now if you're
enjoying this video please take a moment to click 'LIKE' and let me know you find
this research interesting and thank you if you do
I found a 2014 study on tethering in the journal Spine again I'll include a link
to that in the description below now they reported 11 patients with scoliosis
and all underwent tethering before the surgery the angles were
44.2 degrees on average and corrected to an amazing 20.3 degrees at
the two-year mark very impressive risks include pain nerve injury and bleeding
and more serious risks include over correction of the curvature tether
breakage and air leakage into the chest wall which is called pneumothorax
despite encouraging early study data for children and adolescents research is
still limited and there is currently no real data available for adults in the
meantime I've got an amazing online course for adults with scoliosis that
will help you reduce pain slow progression and improve your appearance
I'd love you to join me thanks so much for watching