What is being done to prevent Scoliosis?

Answer 1

Screening in schools is very important in helping to prevent Scoliosis, however, majority of cases of Scoliosis are idiopathic (meaning unknown) and therefore preventing a condition/disease/illness that is unknown is a very difficult task.

To help prevent Scoliosis in children checking the spine on a regular basis can help you spot Scoliosis early on and may help to prevent surgery.

Physicians have recognised scoliosis, the abnormal curvature of the spine, since the time of Hippocrates, but its causes have remained a mystery - until now. For the first time, researchers have discovered a gene that underlies the condition, which affects about 3 percent of all children.

The new finding lays the groundwork for determining how a defect in the gene - known as CHD7 - leads to the C- and S-shaped curves that characterize scoliosis. The gene's link to scoliosis was identified by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, working in collaboration with investigators at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, both in Dallas, Rutgers State University of New Jersey and the University of Iowa. The group published its results in May in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Perhaps these physicians will uncover more findings and we may one day be able to stamp out this gene, this will prevent Scoliosis.