JUNE IS SCOLIOSIS AWARNESS MONTH
Scoliosis and your child: A personal message to every parent who has just heard that
diagnosis;
THE MOMENT EVERYTHING CHANGES
You are sitting in a doctor’s office, or standing at a school screening, and someone tells you that your child’s spine is not straight. In that moment, the word scoliosis feels enormous and frightening, even if you do not yet knowexactly what it means.
I know that moment. I have been in it.
My own child was diagnosed with scoliosis, and I want to be honest with you: it is distressing. It is stressful. The uncertainty, the appointments, the decisions you are asked to make, the thought of what your child may have to go through, it is genuinely awful in the early days. I am not going to tell you otherwise.
What I am going to tell you is that it does get better. With each step you complete, with each appointment that moves the plan forward, the weight of it lifts a little. And if you have the right team around you, people who understand not just the clinical picture but the emotional reality of what your family is navigating, the journey becomes something you can genuinely manage.
That is what we have built at UPANDRUNNING. And that is why I want to write this for every parent who has just heard that diagnosis and does not yet know what comes next.
WHAT SCOLIOSIS ACTUALLY IS
Scoliosis is an abnormal sideways curvature of the spine, instead of running straight from top to bottom, the spine curves to one side. In most children it also involves a degree of rotation, which is what creates the characteristic uneven shoulders or the rib prominence you may have noticed when your child bends forward.
The most common form is adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, meaning it develops during the growth years, typically between the ages of 10 and 16, and there is no single known cause. It is more common in girls and carries a higher risk of progression during periods of rapid growth.
The severity of a scoliotic curve is measured in degrees, the Cobb angle, measured on an X-ray. Mild curves are below 20 degrees. Moderate curves sit between 20 and 45 degrees. Severe curves are above 45 degrees. These thresholds guide treatment decisions, but what matters most in the early stages is not just the number today, it is whether the curve is likely to progress, and how quickly.
The growth period is the critical window. During those years, the right intervention can genuinely change the trajectory of the curve. Outside that window, the options narrow. Which is exactly why acting early, even when a curve feels small, is so important.
YOU ARE NOT STARTING THIS JOURNEY ALONE
One of the things that makes a scoliosis diagnosis so overwhelming is the sense that you have suddenly been handed a complex medical situation with no map. You have a diagnosis. You probably have a number, the Cobb angle, and you may have been told to come back in six months to see how it progresses.
That wait-and-see approach can feel deeply passive when you are a parent. You want to do something. You want to move the plan forward. The good news is that there is a great deal you can do, and the earlier you start, the more impact it has.
One of the things that sets our approach apart is the network our physiotherapist has built with the pediatric orthopedic specialists in Dubai. These are genuine working relationships, our physiotherapist collaborates directly with the leading pediatric orthopedic doctors in the city, communicating regularly on shared patients, aligning on treatment decisions, and making sure that what is happening in physiotherapy sessions is fully joined up with the medical management your child is receiving elsewhere.
This matters enormously in practice. Scoliosis management is not a physiotherapy problem or a medical problem in isolation. It is both. And when the physiotherapist and the orthopedic specialist are talking to each other, rather than operating in separate silos, your child gets a genuinely coordinated plan rather than two parallel ones.
If you do not yet have a pediatric orthopedic specialist, our physiotherapist can refer you directly to the right person for your child’s specific curve and clinical picture. You do not need to navigate that search alone.
THE SCHROTH METHOD, WHAT IT ACTUALLY INVOLVES
The Schroth Method is a specialist physiotherapy approach developed specifically for scoliosis. It is evidence- based, internationally recognized, and the most researched non-surgical treatment for scoliosis in existence. But what does it actually look like for your child?
The first thing to understand is that Schroth therapy is not generic core strengthening or general physiotherapy. It is a program designed specifically around your child’s individual curve, its direction, its location in the spine, the degree of rotation. Two children with scoliosis may have entirely different Schroth programs because their curves are different.
The method works on three levels: corrective breathing that expands the concave side of the curve, targeted muscle activation on the appropriate side of the spine, and postural corrections that gradually train the body to hold a more aligned position. In the early sessions it can feel strange and effortful. Over time, with consistency, it becomes embedded, a new pattern of how your child holds and moves their body.
For younger children, the approach is adapted to be age-appropriate and engaging. For teenagers, the challenge is often motivation and consistency, which is where the relationship between our physiotherapist and your child matters enormously. When a young person trusts their clinician and understands why they are doing what they are doing, compliance is significantly better. And compliance is everything in Schroth.
Research shows that consistent Schroth therapy can meaningfully reduce Cobb angle during the growth phase, not just slow progression, but actually improve the curve in some cases. Combined with bracing where indicated, the outcomes are better still.
THE BRACE: THE HARDEST PART OF THE JOURNEY
I want to be honest about this, because I have seen it from both sides, as a parent and as someone who works in healthcare. And because what I am about to share is not the standard clinical advice. It is what we actually did.
The standard recommendation for bracing is typically 18 hours a day. For many children and teenagers, that is the clinical gold standard. But for my daughter, it was not going to work. She was not willing to wear a brace to school, and I had to make a decision: fight that battle every single day and risk it consuming her mental health and our relationship, or find another way.
We went against the doctor’s recommendation. We had two custom braces made, an overcorrective night-time brace designed to work harder while she slept, and a daytime brace for the hours outside school when we could be consistent without the social pressure and distress that school would have created. We were vigilant and strict with the night time brace. We maximised the daytime hours where we could. And we were honest with ourselves that protecting her mental health was part of the treatment plan, not in conflict with it.
I am not saying this is the right approach for every child. It may not be right for yours. What I am saying is that there is sometimes more flexibility in how you meet the clinical goal than a single protocol suggests, and that the conversation with your clinical team about what is actually sustainable for your family is one worth having openly.
Adolescents are acutely aware of their bodies and acutely aware of being different. A brace affects what they can wear, how they feel about themselves, and how they move through the world. The emotional adjustment takes time, for your child and for you. There will be days when they refuse. There will be days when they are distressed. That is real and it is valid, and it does not mean the process is failing.
What I can tell you is that time genuinely helps. The brace that feels impossible in week two becomes routine by month three. The body adapts. The child adapts. And when the results come, when the numbers hold or improve, that is when they begin to trust the process.
OUR IN-HOUSE ORTHOTIST, CUSTOM BRACING DONE PROPERLY
None of what I have described above would have been possible without a skilled orthotist who could translate the clinical goal into two very different braces, each designed for a different purpose and a different part of the day.
One of the things that is rarely discussed openly about scoliosis management is how much the quality of the brace matters. A brace that does not fit correctly is not just uncomfortable. It is less effective. A brace designed for overcorrection at night is a fundamentally different piece of equipment from a daytime brace designed for wearability and compliance. Getting both right requires someone who genuinely understands the biomechanics of the specific curve pattern, the correction being targeted, and the reality of what a growing young person will and will not tolerate.
At UPANDRUNNING, we have a fabulous in-house orthotist who custom-makes braces for our scoliosis patients. This is not common, most families have to source bracing separately from their physiotherapy team, which means information is fragmented and fitting is disconnected from the clinical picture. Having our orthotist and physiotherapist, under the same roof means the brace is built to support the exercise program and vice versa. Adjustments are made as your child grows. The whole team is looking at the same child.
Research strongly supports the combination of Schroth therapy and bracing as more effective than bracing alone. At UPANDRUNNING, that combination is not an aspiration, it is the standard of care we deliver every day.
IT DOES GET EASIER — I PROMISE
I want to come back to this, because when you are in the early weeks of a diagnosis it is genuinely difficult to believe.
The first time you hear the word scoliosis attached to your child’s name, the world feels uncertain. The appointments feel relentless. The decisions feel enormous. The bracing phase, when it comes, feels brutal. There were days I questioned whether we were doing the right thing, whether the approach we had chosen was working, whether I had made the right call in going against the standard protocol, whether the whole journey was too much for her.
And then the six-month appointment came. Her curve had not moved. She had grown five centimetres, which is exactly the scenario that causes curves to progress, and it had held. We sat in that room and just felt relief. Pure, uncomplicated relief.
That is what is waiting at the other end of the hard part. Not a cure, not the end of the journey, but evidence. Proof that what you are doing is working. And once you have that, the next phase feels completely different.
Step by step, it becomes manageable. The brace becomes part of the routine. The exercises become familiar. The follow-up appointments shift from anxiety-inducing to reassuring. You stop dreading the next check-up and start looking forward to seeing the evidence of the work your child has put in.
If you are at the beginning of this, if the diagnosis is new and the fear is raw, please know that you are not alone in it. There is a team here that has been through this personally and professionally. The path forward is clearer than it feels right now.
SIGNS TO LOOK FOR IN YOUR CHILD — AND WHY I MISSED THEM
Do not be hard on yourself post diagnosis – I missed my daughter’s scoliosis entirely. I am a Marketing professional that has worked within the healthcare industry for over 6 years. I work directly in a sports medicine clinic. And I had no idea.
She was not complaining about her back. She was not visibly uneven in the ways I had in my mind. What she was doing was coming home from netball with leg pain, something I attributed to growing, to sport, to the things we tend to attribute these things to. It was only when I took her to see Dr Gustavo Reque at UPANDRUNNING that the picture changed. Dr Gus examined her, identified that what he was seeing was consistent with scoliosis, and referred her immediately to a pediatric specialist. By that point, her curves were already at 30 degrees in both the lumbar and thoracic spine.
Thirty degrees. In a child whose mother works in sports medicine clinic and had no idea.
I tell you this not to alarm you, but because I think parents deserve to know that scoliosis can be invisible to the people who love their children most. The visible signs, the ones on every checklist, are often subtle in the early stages. And sometimes the presenting symptom is not back pain at all. It is leg pain during sport, or fatigue, or something that feels completely unrelated to the spine.
The lesson I took from that experience is this: if something is off with your child physically, even if it does not fit the obvious picture of scoliosis, it is worth having someone look at the whole picture. Not just the symptom in isolation.
These are the signs most commonly associated with scoliosis, and worth knowing:
- One shoulder sitting consistently higher than the other.
- A shoulder blade that sticks out more prominently on one side.
- An uneven waistline — the gap between the arms and the torso looks different on each side.
- One hip appearing higher or more prominent.
- Clothes sitting unevenly — school shirts untucked on one side, trousers hanging at different lengths.
- A visible rib hump on one side when your child bends forward with their hands together — this is the Adams forward bend test and the most reliable visual indicator.
- Your child mentioning back discomfort, leg pain, or fatigue after sport or prolonged sitting.
None of these signs in isolation means your child definitely has scoliosis. But any of them, or an unexplained physical complaint that does not resolve, warrants a proper assessment rather than a wait-and-see approach. The cost of assessing early and finding nothing significant is low. The cost of waiting and finding that a curve has already reached 30 degrees is a cost I know personally.
If you have any concerns at all, please come and see us. A conversation with Dr Gus or for a referral to a specialist takes very little time. It might be nothing. But if it is something, the earlier you know, the better every outcome becomes.
Not Sure Where to Start?
Book an appointment with our doctors. We will create a personalized treatment plan for you.
