The effectiveness of Schroth method in Cobb angle, quality of life and trunk rotation angle in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

The whole review rests on 144 patients, with individual trials of 14 to 42, so a few small studies drive the pooled result and small trials tend to overstate effects. The comparison groups were not the same thing. Three trials compared Schroth with no treatment or standard care, while others compared it with Pilates, core stabilisation exercises or PNF, so the pooled figure mixes doing more exercise with doing a different exercise. No study followed patients after the intervention finished, so nothing here says whether any improvement lasts. Treatment length ranged from 10 weeks to 24 weeks, which the authors say makes the results hard to interpret and leaves the best dose unknown. The certainty of the evidence was graded low for the Cobb angle and very low for quality of life and trunk rotation. The search covered only English, French and Spanish articles and left out databases such as SportDiscus. Participants spanned ages 10 to 18 with Risser signs from 0 to 5, which mixes patients at quite different risk of their curve getting worse.

The article text supplied here contains no funding statement and no declaration of competing interests, so who paid for the work is not stated.

Do not read this as proof that Schroth exercises straighten the spine by a clinically meaningful amount. The pooled Cobb angle change was 3.18 degrees, which the authors themselves say falls short of the 5-degree difference used to judge improvement, and they rated the evidence for that outcome low quality and the evidence for quality of life and trunk rotation very low.