PHYSICAL THERAPISTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF ADOLESCENT IDIOPATHIC SCOLIOSIS TREATMENT

BACKGROUND: Few studies have demonstrated the benefit of physical therapy in the treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), alone or in conjunction with bracing or surgery. To our knowledge, there is no consensus in pediatric physical therapists who treat AIS patients. PURPOSE: To identify the optimal physical therapy practices for AIS including; weekly frequency, session length, treatment duration, clinical interventions, therapeutic goal-setting, and outcome measures from pediatric physical therapists’ perspectives. METHODS: A 40-question validated survey, The Analysis of the Schroth Method in Adjunct to Physical Therapy Services for Treatment of AIS, was distributed to pediatric physical therapists across the country via the Academy of Pediatric Physical Therapy electronic newsletter and via dissemination by the Injury Prevention Research Interest Group from Pediatric Research in Sport Medicine. REDCap was used to collect and organize responses. The responses were analyzed by a descriptive statistics using percentages (%). RESULTS: Sixty-five responses were obtained. The majority of physical therapists, 78.5%, were Doctors of Physical Therapy (DPT), treating 1-5 AIS patients a week (69.2%), and 18.8% had Schroth certification. Preferred treatment frequency was twice a week (41.5%) for a duration of 60 minutes (53.8%), over the course of 3-5 months (44.6%). The top three common clinical interventions were; core and trunk stability enhancement (90.8%), abdominal strengthening (83.1%) and postural correction (80.0%). The three most common therapeutic goal-setting parameters were activity based (78.5%), quality of life measure based (56.9%), and therapy participation based (50.8%). Additionally, for outcome measures, patient reported outcome was the most common objective measurement (78.5%), followed by pain (63.1%), manual muscle testing (46.2%), range of motion (44.6%), cobb angle (27.7%), scoliometer readings (26.2%) and Adam’s forward bend test (10.8%). Therapists often monitored progress with completed surveys by patients. However, patients’ ability to return to activity was the most common marker of improvement (72.3%). Patient’s scoliosis was often being treated in another manner aside from PT (46.2%), and many patients had medical conditions in addition to scoliosis (52.3%). CONCLUSION: According to our data, pediatric physical therapists believe that patients with AIS can benefit from physical therapy treatments addressing core and trunk stability, abdominal strengthening, and postural correction. Ideal treatment sessions would occur twice a week for 60 minutes over a period of 3-5 months. Objective measurements can be monitored to ensure improvements in quality of life, pain, strength, range of motion and curvature of the patient’s spine. Acknowledgements The Injury Prevention Research Interest Group from Pediatric Research in Sports Medicine and Suzanne M. McCahan, PhD