Behavioral method for the treatment of idiopathic scoliosis.
Idiopathic scoliosis was treated by an automated portable posture-training device that incorporated precise behavioral principles and enabled therapeutic training to be given in the patients' normal environment throughout the entire day. Twenty-one patient-years of training were completed with a group of 12 adolescent girls selected as being imminently likely to require a brace because of the way their spinal curves had been progressing. As an alternative to conventional brace therapy, patients found the posture-training device considerably less physically restraining and more cosmetically acceptable. Most patients wore it 23 hr per day for at least 1 year and adapted well to the constant physical and psychological presence of the instrument. For 10 patients, the outcome was entirely successful; they were discharged from this pilot study as satisfactorily corrected. Progression of the scoliotic curve was arrested; in fact, there was an average slight improvement in the Cobb angle (a measure of spinal curvature) as measured by x-ray radiography.
D000293:Adolescent; D001521:Behavior Therapy; D001676:Biofeedback, Psychology / Q000295:instrumentation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011187:Posture; D012600:Scoliosis / Q000628:therapy*