[Music] If a health and wellness checkup
is on your back-to-school list and we
just did this, Amber don't forget to add
a scoliosis screening so
important.
There's a new spine screen app developed
by Shriners Hospitals For Children
that helps parents detect the signs
and early detection is key especially for
one fourteen-year-old aspiring
ballerina.
And as a mom of two dancers the
story certainly speaks to me, take a
look.
I want to be a principal dancer in the
New York City Ballet.
It's really
competitive to get there but I think I
can do it as long as I work hard.
Kate aspires to be a professional
ballet dancer and for her to have the
fusion-less surgery really allowed her to be
able to pursue her dreams and it just
gave her her life back.
Scoliosis is a curve in the spine that if it's
left untreated can cause breathing
problems, pain, and even disability.
We don't know
what causes scoliosis but we do know
that it runs in families.
So when Kate's sister, Lauren was
detected with scoliosis we knew that we
had to watch Kate even more closely.
I felt more strong on one side and
also I would get tired and because my
lungs were twisted and my ribs were
twisted that I couldn't breathe as well.
So getting this surgery helped me
breathe well and help both sides be even
so that dancing would be easier for me.
[Music] Every six months Doctor SamDani
would see Kate and she got really the best
care possible.
You know without this opportunity her
dance career would have ended, I'm sure.
She was struggling with rib rotation and breathing,
being able to you know fill her lungs and do all
the athletic things that dancers do.
And it really put a damper on what she
was able to actually accomplish.
At Shriners Hospital for Children we can
offer all the different treatment
options that a patient may need for the
treatment of their scoliosis, including
scoliosis specific exercises, physical
therapy, and for some patients surgery
and all of this can be offered under one
roof.
We are able to take care of kids
from all over the world regardless of a
family's ability to pay.
It was awesome, I
had to go back slowly but it was quick.
It was like 20 days and after that, like
a week after I started dancing I started
getting all my flexibility back.
Before the surgery I felt kind of like
slouched and it would be hard to stand up
tall, and now I felt like because in
ballet you have to be one long line and
now I can do that.
I'm not all crooked.
As a clinician, one of the most frustrating
things for me to see is a child to come
to clinic with a really severe curvature
because I know that if that curve was
picked up earlier there would be many
different options available.
Including exercises and bracing, certainly
there are some patients that would
need surgery but there's many others
that we may have been able to avoid
surgery with early detection.
Thus we felt it was really important for
us to develop the spine screen app.
The spine screen app is easy to use
it's free, you can download it onto
your phone, it has a step-by-step video,that
shows parents how to use it.
Basically once the app is downloaded
onto the phone the parent can run the
phone down their child's back twice to
ensure accuracy, if the results are
outside of acceptable then we recommend
followup with the spine specialist.
If the results are fine the app
will actually set up reminders for
you to go ahead and check your child back
again.
We are really encouraging parents
to make this a part of their
back-to-school routine.
It's not taking the place of
doctors offices or the care that they would get but
it's just a starting point and it's
wonderful to be able to share what we've gotten
here with other parents that come to
us and other parents that we seek out.
Doctor SamDani helped my future and
helped me be the best dancer I can
possibly be and helps me be able to follow
my dreams and he is he's our hero.
What a great story!
Absolutely, and for more
information about detecting scoliosis
and the new spine screen app go to
Shriners Hospitals for children dot org
slash scoliosis.
Of course you can always
go to our website the balancing act dot com
We've got lots more, stay with us!