Recently Rebecca Harding presented at the Spine Society of Australia’s national conference, whose membership consists nearly entirely of spinal surgeons.

The aim was to increase surgeons awareness of the evidence for Physiotherapeutic Scoliosis-Specific Exercises (PSSE ie Schroth) in the conservative management of AIS.

What prompted the presentation was the publication in the last 2 years of 3 high quality research papers (randomized controlled trials) investigating the effect of PSSE on Cobb angle in AIS.

Many surgeons have been unaware that in response to this research, the international Scoliosis Research Society updated their official statement on PSSE to say that the combination of PSSE with bracing may offer advantages over bracing alone and that some evidence has shown the superiority of some PSSE programs in comparison with non-specific exercise and/or controls.

The results of Rebecca’s analysis on these papers found an overall reduction in Cobb of 5.5 degrees in favour of PSSE, when compared to controls in AIS.