The Schroth Physiotherapy Method was developed in the 1920s by Katharina Schroth, who had essentially no formal training and was a scoliosis patient who struggled with the spinal orthosis both physically and psychologically. She discovered that breathing exercises for scoliosis and her body position could improve the shape of her spine with scoliosis. She later developed an official methodology with formal training requirements and founded her clinic in Bad Sobernheim, Germany in 1961, which still exists today. Many physical therapists have been trained to provide the Schroth method to scoliosis patients, either at an intensive level many hours a day over the course of weeks or in an extended care program with home care over the course of months. The Schroth method is often an adjunct to the spinal orthosis and is most often prescribed with the Chaneau orthosis, essentially a rigid guided growth orthosis designed by Dr. Manuel Rigo of Barcelona, ​​Spain.

The basis of the Schroth method is breathing combined with postural positioning. The theory is that if a scoliosis patient learns how to position her body from her and consciously controls it, she will be able to at least partially correct her existing deformity. In addition, breathing air into the shallow areas of rib deformation, called rotational angular breathing, will also create corrective shape changes in the rib cage. There are published case studies demonstrating the effectiveness of this program. The case studies presented were of patients who had followed extreme exercise regiments and were supervised and instructed one on one for hours over the course of 4 to 6 weeks while in Germany. Posture x-rays and posture were taken after these extremely intense sessions and certainly demonstrate positive changes.

The Schroth program uses a conscious effort to self-correct your scoliosis, a noble idea and certainly one that has been around for close to 100 years with some success. The simple fact is that exercise empowers the scoliosis patient to do something where the orthopedic community relies on the force of noise and the ideology that we’ll fix it with a rigid orthotic or titanium rods. I think if a patient exercised 6 hours a day, 7 days a week for a year or more doing corrective postures and breathing exercises, they would probably see some improvement and would definitely be better than wearing a brace or spinal fusion.

The fundamental difference between the CLEAR scoliosis treatment system is that CLEAR uses a two-step protocol. The first step is to decrease soft tissue resistance through continuous passive movement combined with tensile derotation forces to release soft tissue elastic deformation that accommodates scoliosis, followed by a second step called neuromuscular re-education. uses weight added to the spine at various locations to influence a brain-directed reactive change under subconscious control to alter the activation of intrinsic muscles (deep layer muscles) to shift neural output to that muscle altering tone muscular. I realize it was a mouthful, but in simpler terms, CLEAR is fundamentally different because the exercise is directed by subconscious righting reflexes and not by conscious effort that only affects larger, superficial muscle groups that need to be continuously worked. to alter the position of the body. CLEAR was developed by physicians who specialize in spinal rehabilitation who were looking for something that would require less effort, time, and create more permanent reductions.