Kids Brace Wear
False Statement #1 – “There is no point in prescribing a brace because kids don’t wear them”.
I have heard parents say they were told this by their doctor. This is untrue. Obviously no kids are excited about wearing a brace and can be easily discouraged from wearing their brace but most studies show the majority of patients do wear their brace. Our recent review of 99 patients fitted with The L.A. Brace showed that 75% of kids wore their brace full time and of these only 5% went on to have surgery. This compares with approximately 50% that will have surgery if they do not wear the brace. A 90% improvement.
Bracing does NOT negatively affect quality of life. New paper by Negrini et. al. Spine, Aug 2016, reviewed several studies reporting measures of Quality of Life (QoL) in scoliosis bracing patients. Studies showed during treatment that bracing did NOT change QoL, back pain, psychological, and cosmetic issues in the long term (16 years).