Scoliosis is a Widespread Treatable Problem
If someone has school-age children in their household, it should be part of their back-to-school routine to get a scoliosis screening or exam at their family chiropractor’s office.
Every year, most schools and communities sponsor scoliosis screenings to make sure the kids in each community have good spinal health, and if they don’t, to get them some attention to help them improve. Scoliosis is an abnormal curving of the spine, the bones in the back. Some curves are normal and some are abnormal; scoliosis refers to the abnormal curves, front-to-back or side-to-side.
When most people think about the human spine, they mainly focus on the bones, the skeleton we’d see if we stripped away the skin and muscle. These spinal bones form the structure of our body, the framework upon which everything else is built. That’s pretty important, but the most important role of the spinal bones isn’t keeping the structure upright; they protect the delicate nerve system, the wiring and communication system of the body, found inside and between the spinal bones.
Natural selection chose this system to protect the channels that connect the brain with the rest of the body and maintain the spinal bones in proper alignment for good brain and nerve system health. That’s why so many communities insist on regular scoliosis examinations for their schoolchildren and why doctors of chiropractic have specialized for over 100 years in keeping kids’ spines healthy.
If someone has school-age children in their household, it should be part of their back-to-school routine to get a scoliosis screening or exam at their family chiropractor’s office. Even if they offer a similar exam at school, their family chiropractor should get to know the kids as a baseline to establish a good working knowledge of their family’s health and wellness needs.
They can also participate in this examination process. For example, stand behind the child and ask them to bend over from the waist. If one side is higher or lower, rounder or flatter than the other; the head tilted or turned; the neck or spine look twisted or rotated; there is rounding of their child’s shoulders; a forward head posture; one ear higher or lower than the other; one shoulder or hip higher or lower than the other; putting more weight on one side than the other; or uneven shoe wear, these are all signs that there may be some kind of spinal curvature.
None of this is necessarily dangerous, although at times it can contribute to serious health problems. For some people, a degree of curvature may be normal, but to be on the safe side, seek an expert’s opinion. People ahould make it a habit to include periodic check-ups for the whole family at their doctor of chiropractic, whose education focuses on the spine, brain and nerve system. It’s better to know what’s going on and take any appropriate actions before a problem advances too far.
Dr. Donna Perillo, DC, NMD, CNS, of Chiropractic Healing Center of NJ, provides chiropractic care, physical therapy, acupuncture, nutrition, weight loss and massage therapy. For more information, call 973-872-2133, or visit ChiroHealingNJ.com.
