Scoliosis SOS Research Published in Scientific Journal

Scoliosis SOS Physical Therapists

We at the Scoliosis SOS Clinic are very proud to announce that we recently had our first piece of research published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The article, Current knowledge of scoliosis in physiotherapy students trained in the United Kingdom (Black et al, Scoliosis and Spinal Disorders 2017) was published online on the 27th September and can be read in full here.

What were we researching?

Put simply, we wanted to know how much UK physiotherapists know about scoliosis. In both Poland and the USA, it has been recognised that physiotherapy students have relatively little knowledge of idiopathic scoliosis, how it affects the human body, and how to factor a spinal curve into a patient’s treatment regime; with that in mind, we wanted to measure UK students’ familiarity with this condition. To do this, we composed a 10-question survey and distributed it (via course leaders) to students at all UK universities that offer physiotherapy degrees. Questions on the survey included:

What is the definition of idiopathic scoliosis?
What causes idiopathic scoliosis?
When does idiopathic scoliosis commonly develop?
What percentage of scoliosis cases are idiopathic?
What physical activities are most/least beneficial for patients with scoliosis? (multiple choice question – options included yoga, swimming, martial arts, etc.)

In the end, a total of 206 students at 12 different institutions in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland completed our survey, giving us a good sample size to analyse.

What were our findings?

Of the students who responded to our survey:

79% successfully identified when idiopathic scoliosis commonly develops
54% knew when bracing is recommended
52% correctly identified that the causes of idiopathic scoliosis are not known
24% recognised that scoliosis is idiopathic in approximately 80% of cases
12% knew the criteria for diagnosing idiopathic scoliosis
7% were able to recognise the best treatment approach through physical therapy

Overall, just 7% of students surveyed were able to answer more than half of the questionnaire correctly. Based on this, our conclusion was that there is a clear lack of scoliosis knowledge among UK physiotherapy students – a lack of knowledge that has the potential to impact patients who receive information and treatment from physiotherapists in this country. Click here to view more scoliosis research, or visit our ScolioGold page to learn about the exercise-based scoliosis treatment we provide here at the Scoliosis SOS Clinic.

Scoliosis SOS Research Published in Scientific Journal

What were we researching?

What were our findings?

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