Scoliosis Definition And Classification | Dr. Walter Salubro Chiropractor in Vaughan

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Hello everyone and welcome to my new series on scoliosis. We are broadcasting live from Vaughan Ontario, Canada. My name is Dr. Walter Salubro. I’m a corrective care chiropractor out here in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. And I’m excited at the series. Scoliosis is a passion that I have about helping people with, treatments with scoliosis and providing corrective care protocols when it comes to helping people to scoliosis. And I’ll get into in this episode it’s scoliosis definition and scoliosis classification. And throughout the rest of the series, what I’m going to do is I’m going to answer, um, and uh, questions about specific things about scoliosis, like the various treatment options, uh, the importance of early detection and early screening, uh, which helps dictates the care. Um, what happens when a conservative options, um, are exhausted what’s left. We’re talking about bracing specific types of bracing and of course, how to avoid the last resort, which would be surgery.


So again, to all these different aspects of scoliosis, um, in this entire series. So look out for the rest of the episodes as we go along. So, let’s get right into it. And as well I always take, this live show is going to be two segments. The first segment will be the tutorial part, where I’ll give you some insights and information. And then the next, last segment of this session will be some live Q and A, question and answers. So the chat is on and go ahead and leave some questions there and I’ll do my best to answer them while I’m on the live stream. If you catch this on the replay, then go ahead and leave questions in the comments below and I’ll do my best to return back an answer. I do get hundreds and thousands of comments and questions and it’s literally impossible for me to answer all of them, but I’ll do my best to answer as many as I can as well.


If you’ve ever subscribed to my channel, welcome to this live episode. I appreciate you for being a member of this community and subscribing. And if you catch us on the replay, do remember to subscribe. If you like this information, subscribe and click on the notification bell so you don’t lose out on any new, information tutorials and live sessions that I put out. That’s one of my missions that are going to start doing more, content on a daily basis. So let me get right into it. Scoliosis definition, scoliosis classification as a corrective care chiropractor out here in Vaughan, Ontario. Canada. Scoliosis is one of the, one of the things, the conditions that I work on and we provide conservative, non-surgical methods and treatments for scoliosis. And we also provided specific bracing for scoliosis for both children, adolescent teens and also an adults. We’ll talk about the prevalence of scoliosis, adults, maybe today or in another episode. But, it actually, the most prevalent, population, that scoliosis exists is in adults, believe it or not. So let me get into the classifications. Okay.


First of all, how is scoliosis defines a very specific, very specific definition to scoliosis. And before I get into the definition of scoliosis, how do we categorize in the findings? It’s important to know what, what a normal is because we need to compare what we find to what a normal is. So I’m going to show you a model of the spine here. Okay, so there’s the spine from the front and then there is the spine from the side and there’s the spine from the back. So I’ll use the back. Okay, now normal. When you look at the spine from the front or the back should be straight up and down like an Arrow, straight up and down like an arrow. That is normal. Okay, so front, well you look at it from the back or the front on. On an Xray, it should be straight up and down like a straight line, like an arrow. From the side.
now this is the lateral position or from the side does have normal curves. The neck is a C shape curve. Bending back in approximates a segment of a circle, so it’s kind of circular shape. The mid back is elliptical and approximate. A segment of an ellipse and the low back is also elliptical. That approximates a segment of an ellipse. The entire spine is made up of 24 bones called the vertebrae that are stacked up, one on top of each other. And then between each bone is a disc, which is a cartilaginous structure that helps absorb load and impact and the weight on the spine. So it’s very, very important. Okay, so from the front, I’ll reference from the front, this straight and a reference from this side, from the back is straight. Now scoliosis is defined. So when we have on a spine that is bending sideways, just like this, let me fix this here.

Okay, so we have a spine that’s bending sideways like this laterally or sideways, sometimes as a double bend, so as bending sideways and it has a rotation into the spine, so it rotated. That is a scoliosis and this lateral bending. There’s specific measurements we’re looking for if it’s measured by a a 10 degrees curve or more sideways bending of the spine with a rotation of the vertebrae that is classified as a scoliosis. Now, what is the only way that that can be actually measured?


It’s with an x ray. A scoliosis cannot be diagnosed without an x ray. Very, very important to realize that we have certain screening techniques we can do observation wise, looking at posture and, and shoulders and shoulder blades and, and test called forward bending tests to check for any rib humps. Those are all potential screenings and things we look for. But in the end it’s an x ray of the spine that will detect and be able to give us an analysis of scoliosis. So just to review, so from the front should always be straight to the spine and then when it’s sideways bending with the rotation, that’s called a scoliosis. When it’s measured 10 degrees or more. In essence, a scoliosis is actually a 3D deformity of the entire spine because not only as a sideways bending, but it’s also rotated and the fact that spine becomes spirally deformed or a shaped.


So if I had an aerial view from the top of bird’s eye view, if I looked at it this way, I would actually see the spine is actually spiraling. So it’s a 3D deformation or deformity of the spine, which makes it a very complex condition, a structural condition. And also considering that is very important for early detection, early screening because the earlier we catch it and these measurements, the small the measurements are the better potential for stability and correction and less likelihood for degeneration and progression in the future. So that’s how we define it. And what’s the prevalence? In entire population, anywhere from 2 to 4% of people may have a scoliosis and there are different categories or classifications. So for sure the most common category classification is what’s called idiopathic scoliosis. So in the medical terminology, what idiopathic means is no known cause is really known.


No cause and scoliosis 80% of the time is one of those conditions that we just don’t know. Research don’t know. Researchers don’t know. Clinicians don’t know what the actual cause of that’s that lateral bending and rotation of spine is, so it’s called idiopathic. And now underneath the idiopathic school, categories of categorization and classification are different types. So when it’s detected under the age of three, so three years and under, that’d be called an infant scoliosis. So an infantile idiopathic scoliosis when detected and diagnosed three years and under when it’s detected and diagnosed anywhere between the age of three and 10, about the start of puberty. That’s called juvenile idiopathic scoliosis once detected and diagnosed around the age of 10 to 18. So that adolescent year and then going into teenhood that is called adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. And when it’s an adult that has scoliosis, that was detected in the adolescent years, that it would be an adult idiopathic scoliosis that that originated as an adolescence.


Okay. Cause there’s different versions of adult scoliosis. Now there are other categories that are less common, hat in terms of the classification of scoliosis. And another one is a neuromuscular type of scoliosis on that can can occur anywhere from 5 to 7% in terms of all the scolios’. And then this condition is like a neurofibroma fibromatosis that can trigger scoliosis. And then there’s congenital, 10% of time can be congenital. Reason, which means the spine just didn’t develop properly and malformed during development and cause deformities and of triggered scoliosis. And then there is what’s called degenerative, denovo scoliosis that is a scoliosis degenerative denovo scoliosis. That’s a scoliosis that actually in starts or initiates in adulthood. So it’s not a scoliosis that was discovered in an adult that started off as an adolescent because that would be an adolescent.
idiopathic scoliosis in an an adult. It’s a degenerative denovo scoliosis is a scoliosis that actually began and it was diagnosed in adults. So they, they start off not having it and then eventually developed and into scoliosis because of degeneration on the spine. And there’s a high prevalence of that, anywhere, you know, above 35, even up to 38% of adults may have the generative deovo scoliosis. And then there’s other reasons or a classifications for scoliosis. There’s functional. That can be due to a postural distortion. The rib cage or the spine or the posture, things like anatomical short legs, that’s another functional reason, muscle spasms. Those can trigger functional type scoliosis’. And then of course, surgical reasons may cause scoliosis. And then there’s a whole variety of less common reasons based on other factors like diseases and so forth.


All right, cool. So that’s the categories and classifications of scoliosis. All right. And so what I want to do is just review a few things. So idiopathic means no known cause is very important. So, the causes unknown. Classification in terms of what school is classified as has to, has to have these main things. There is a spine is bending sideways. There’s a 3d deformity and rotation of the spine. There’s a 3d deformity rotation of the posture, and of course it affects the person’s function. So it causes an alteration and function and health status. And the last couple of things I want to end off on as I look at my notes over here is that we do know that the actual spinal curve scoliosis curve has a tendency for progression, especially when it, when it develops early on when it develops as an infant or a juvenile child or in an adolescents.


These are situations where where especially as a juvenile and as an infant, puberty hasn’t even kicked in yet. The spinal structures haven’t fully ossified of fully closed in terms of the growth plates. And there’s a high, high occurrence of growth still occurring in the spine and the other structures and bones, especially in adolescence when there’s puberty hormonal changes causing massive growth spurts. And typically the legs and leg long bones and legs will grow early. And then after adolescence, it’s the tarsal that begins to have it’s growth spurt. So that’s an area that needs to be an age area needs to be monitored closely and screened early. Because when you catch these early, you can make a massive difference in these children and teens lives to either catch it and stabilize it and prevent further progression and also possibly even get some correction in there with either conservative methods, exercises, conservative chiropractic care, corrective chiropractic care, even some bracing. So it’s very, very important. All right. So early screening and early detection is important because early detection will help dictate the right treatment at the right time. So it’s very important, note early detection will help, will help detect the right treatment at the right time. Okay.


Very cool. Awesome. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going sign to sign off over here and look out for episode number two. I only get into screening scoliosis the importance of really detection, what to look for in a screening. I’m going to share with you an actual cool website that you could do at home provide us a screening tool for you for scoliosis and then how we as doctors will screen for it in, in an office like mine and a corrective care chiropractic office like mine. And what I’m looking for and if I can, I’ll even show you some diagrams and images, um, and also x-rays, if I can get a chance to do that on my camera here. So hope you found that useful and go ahead and type in your question. If you haven’t.


Now I’ll spend another minute or so waiting for that live question. If not leave your questions in the comments below and do the let me know. Give me some feedback if you like this topic. If you like this series, we’ll kind of questions you want answered in the series. I will do my best to answer them going forward in the next several series, I plan to do at least another three to five sorry, three to four. So a total of five, um, episodes on scoliosis in this series. Scoliois is something that I have a passion for in terms of helping, with in our office we provide corrective methods, for stability, stabilization and a correction of scoliosis and treatment of the symptoms related to scoliosis. And, oftentimes people are just not, not aware of what conservative methods are available and when the schools is caught early on in anywhere from anywhere you know, 10 to 15 degrees to 20, 24 degrees by Orthopedic Surgeons, for instance, that’s not a surgical case at that point.
So they’re just going say, let’s wait and see what happens and we’ll monitor annually and there’s a high probability for progression, especially during those puberty, puberty stages. So we want to really get this education out there to the parents and to, uh, the teens and, and to anyone in the public where it can give some opportunities to discover different options for a screening and detection and also treatment. So, um, so if you like this, let me know. I do like feedback and uh, if you catch us on the replay, do subscribe to my channel and Click on the notification bell so you don’t miss out on any notifications. And as well questions leave in the comments below and I’ll do my best to get to your question. It’s Dr. Walter here. Thank you for watching. And I’ll see on the next video.