Along with local patients, each week we have the great pleasure of meeting wonderful patients, and often their caring family members, who come to learn to manage scoliosis via the Schroth Method. In the the last few weeks we’ve welcomed families from Long Island, Virginia, Missouri, Montreal, a couple from Alaska, and this past week a girl from Maryland who found us online and appealed to her grandparents for help.
After an initial phone call from her grandfather and quite a few email exchanges, her grandparents had an unusual request: to come to Boston for a Schroth Method demonstration, to meet Marc and learn more about the scoliosis program. Initially, not everyone in the family was on board with this girl’s desire to pursue an alternative treatment for scoliosis, but with an S curve and a thoracic Cobb angle greater than 40º, the threat of surgery loomed.
The email communications from her grandparents revealed their concern and their deep desire to help their granddaughter. My belief is that each child deserves every chance at avoiding scoliosis surgery so I arranged a demonstration with one of Marc’s Boston area Schroth Method patients. Thanks CN!
The grandparents and granddaughter returned this past week and this hard-working girl completed her Schroth program, with honors! After her initial session, she could clearly understand the benefits of what she was to learn. The grandparents related that she had called home and told her parents she felt empowered and she believed that Schroth offered her a very real chance of avoiding surgery!
The benefits the Schroth Method offers to scoliotics cannot be understated. Hope and empowerment are intrinsic to the program because of the value and potency of the individualized education, Scoliologic® ADL’s and Schroth rotational angular breathing and exercises. A negative outlook can become positive, helplessness can become strength, and despair can become hope. The effect is motivational because there is now something, within one’s control, to counteract a curving spine. Scoliotics are no longer victims, but managers of the condition. We’ve seen the Schroth Method transform attitudes and outlooks concerning life with scoliosis!
Mid-week the grandparents reported that since their granddaughter had learned she may require surgery, her mood had become dark, but since beginning instruction her true personality returned and she hadn’t stopped smiling! In this case, I think it’s safe to say the Schroth Method also helped turn sadness into smiles.
