Effect of the Schroth method of emphasis of active holding on Cobb's angle in patients with scoliosis: a case report.
Hyung Joo Lee, Hwa Dong Seong, Young-Hyeon Bae and 4 others
PMID 27821972WHAT IT FOUND
For a small group of patients with idiopathic scoliosis, individually applied Schroth exercises were followed by lower pain scores and smaller Cobb angles.
These are observations in a few people, not evidence that the method works.
Key findings
01Three patients with idiopathic scoliosis and Cobb’s angle ≥10° received individually applied Schroth method with emphasis on active holding for 15 weeks.
02Cobb angles changed from 20°, 20.3°, and 30.6° before treatment to 10.8°, 4°, and 18.5° after treatment.
03Pain scores changed from VAS 4, 8, and 8 before treatment to VAS 0, 0, and 3 after treatment.
STILL TO COME
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What it does not show
Only three patients were described, so the results cannot show what would happen in most patients with idiopathic scoliosis. There was no untreated group or alternative treatment comparison, so it cannot show that the Schroth method caused the changes. The supplied text does not report randomisation, blinding, or a control group. Participants were excluded if they had prior scoliosis treatment, smoked, had asthma, lung disease, central nervous system disease, or previous spine surgery, so the description does not apply to those groups. The paper does not report long-term follow-up after the 15-week programme.
Declared interests
No funding or conflicts of interest were reported in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the Schroth method reduces Cobb angle or pain. The paper does not include a comparison group, so it cannot show that the method caused the changes.