Dr. Walter Salubro Interviews Dr. Jeb McAviney, Scoliosis Expert, Lecturer, CEO of ScoliCare, and Founder of ScoliBrace
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Dr. Walter Salubro:
The reason why I chose to do the scoliosis topic, it’s an interest topic of mine and a focus of care in my office. I have a corrective care style office, here in Vaughan. And, I remember years ago there was a young patient who came in and she was about 16 or 17 years old and had a very serious scoliosis curve. She was in with her mom and we measured it and it was in the upper thirties. It was really serious. And when I showed the mom the x-rays, she started breaking down and crying because she knew at the age of 12 that her daughter had scoliosis and the actual degrees of the curve was a lot less. And all she was told was just to wait and see what happens, but now it progressed and got worse.
And I remember her bawling her eyes out in front of her daughter, in front of me and I just remember telling myself that should not be happening. You know, these things should get checked early, addressed early because there’s some things that we can do to at least help them prevent the progression. And also in some cases possibly get some correction. So that’s why I decided to dive into more scoliosis work in our office. And also bring a special guest today on this show, which I’ll introduce in a moment, and we will talk about scoliosis. So just give me a moment, let me split my screen here and introduce our guest. So we have Dr. Jeb McAviney, are you there. Dr. Jeb.
Dr. Jeb McAviney:
I am. Thank you very much, Dr. Walter. Nice to be here.
Dr. Walter Salubro:
Awesome. Thank you. So, Dr. Jeb, I’ll just give us a brief bio. I’ve known of him through different seminars and courses. First time meeting him kind of in-person through video. And I’m looking forward to seeing you in person at the advanced CBP course in June, but a brief bio of Dr. Jeb McAviney. He’s a chiropractor, dedicated scoliosis clinician, researcher, and lecturer, and and holds a master’s of chiropractic, a master’s of pain medicine and completed the inaugural world master scoliosis course by I.S.I.C.O. He’s the CEO of ScoliCare, a world-leading organization focused on providing chiropractors with the education or resources to effectively treat and manage scoliosis. Through ScoliCare, Dr. McAviney founded the ScoliBrace system, which is the preeminent scoliosis bracing system currently used by chiropractors throughout the world. Dr. McAviney is an internationally recognized speaker, lecturing at universities and conferences around the world. He has published spinal research in JMPT and the JPTS, is on the associate editorial board of the European spine journal and is an active member of SOSORT. And that stands for Society of Scoliosis and Orthopedic Rehabilitation. So we’re really fortunate to have Dr. Jeff here today. Thanks for coming.
Dr. Jeb McAviney:
Thank you so much. Thanks for that warm welcome.
Dr. Walter Salubro:
Yeah, for sure. So, the first question I would like to ask all my guest is, I know you have some offices in Australia, and so tell us about your clinics, your offices, what’s unique about them and who do you help and who typically comes to you?
Dr. Jeb McAviney:
Great. So ScoliCare is an organization that’s focused on non-surgical scoliosis management. And in Australia, we have clinics in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Melbourne. We also have network partners that we work with, and the purpose of those clinics is to really offer a non-surgical treatment that’s focused on being able to give people the latest and the best approaches to that. Traditionally, non-surgical treatment was an afterthought.
And these days, if we can be very focused on, you know, the right treatment at the right time. So for example, scoliosis specific exercise approaches when they’re appropriate or good three-dimensional over corrective bracing when that’s appropriate. But often, we can stop those patients from needing, you know, more invasive management in the future. So that’s really the goal of the ScoliCare clinics. We don’t have any clinics that we directly run outside of Australia, we work with over 150 chiropractors around the world, about 120 in North America. And they use ScoliBrace systems. So we do training programs to really help them understand better how to manage scoliosis and also give them the tools. So those tools are scoliosis specific exercise, things like ScoliRoll, training with our partners, such as CBP, and then also training in the bracing. And so in that way, we can help a lot more people than just the people we’ve seen that clinics.
Dr. Jeb McAviney:
We really have a reach worldwide and trying to make sure that those patients get the best possible outcome.
Dr. Walter Salubro:
Yeah, that’s phenomenal. As you know, we talked about some of the numbers, in the adult population in the pre-show, how many people have scoliosis and, their options that they’re just not aware of all the options, and you’re bringing forth a lot of these options through your clinics Australia, and then through all the other clinics that you train and the doctors you train. So it’s pretty, pretty fascinating, pretty amazing. How did you get started with scoliosis work?
Dr. Jeb McAviney:
So, it’s quite interesting. My father is a chiropractor and an osteopath. I actually started working in these clinic when I was quite young answering the phones, building the clinic, all those types of things. But his passion was really non-surgical scoliosis management.
Dr. Walter Salubro:
Interesting.
Dr. Jeb McAviney:
So he would do different techniques. Felbam cross technique, with these chiropractic and lots of different things and where it was appropriate. He would let me come and watch of course, with the patient’s permission. And so I developed this interest very early on, even before I started chiropractic school. And then during my chiropractic, um, journey, I went to Macquarie university in Australia. Um, we didn’t learn much about scoliosis. So when we came out again, it’s something that I, I did the search for and went through lots of different types of techniques with CBP, SpineCor bracing, and then with all the other type of rigid braces as well, eventually led me to SOSORT, which is a fantastic organization for the education and the ISICO group in Italy. So, you know, I’ve really, from that that passion that my father has, has tried to, you know, have that journey that’s led me to establishing ScoliCare and ScoliBrace.
Dr. Walter Salubro:
Awesome. People kind of may have idea with scoliosis, what scoliosis is. They definitely know it’s not a normal alignment of the spine, so let’s define scoliosis. What is it, how is it defined? You know, what’s the gold standard, the diagnosis. Let’s get into those questions.
Dr. Jeb McAviney:
So when you look at a person from behind, you you’d expect the spine to be straight and their body to be symmetrical. With scoliosis, the spine starts to bend and their body becomes asymmetrical. Technically, you know, we would diagnose a scoliosis when that curvature is greater than 10 degrees. Measure that by a method called the Cobb angle. Truly for it to be scoliosis, we also have to see a twist or rotation occurring there because, you know, you could just have a curve in your back, but that’s not necessarily scoliosis, let’s say without the rotation. And the rotation is because the bones and the disc start to become deformed. And so scoliosis is really used more than just a curve on an x-ray. It’s a three-dimensional deformity of the spine and of a posture. That’s really important for clinicians and patients to understand because it actually makes it a little harder to treat them just standing in a in a up posture.
Dr. Jeb McAviney:
So that’s the basics of scoliosis, but of course it’s even more complex than that. You know, how the people, how patients look is affected. You know, often scoliosis causes pain, although traditionally we’re taught, maybe it doesn’t. But if we look particularly in the adult population, there’s a very strong correlation to low back pain and a scoliosis in the lower part of the spine. The way it’s typically diagnosed, a health professionals, such as yourself and myself, are trained in postural analysis to pick up the key features. And we do a special test where the patient bends forward called the Adams forward bending test. Will give us an indication that perhaps there’s a scoliosis. But the real definitive diagnosis comes with an x-ray. Today that still remains the gold standard.
Dr. Walter Salubro:
So actually it’s important for sure.
