Abstract
Scoliosis is a disease, which distorts body shape and is associated with many complications if left untreated. Idiopathic scoliosis, generally, becomes evident around the age of 8 years. A two-minute-unclothed examination of primary-school students, may alert the pediatric orthopedist to early-warning signals, which are expressed as a mathematical index, named as ‘Normalized-Scoliosis-Risk Weightage’ (NSRW). NSRW is a modification of index proposed earlier, ‘CumulativeScoliosis-Risk Weightage’ (CSRW) and is high expressed as a percentage. This new index is insensitive to number of tests included to compute its value and hence could be compared for different sessions, having a varying number of tests. Both NSRW and CSRW are based on family history, age, statuses of being tall and/or wasted, forward-bending tests, nonalignment of plumb-line, shoulder drooping, uneven scapulae, back-midline shape, unequal body triangles, uneven spinal dimples and positive moiré/dotted-raster. A NSRW calls for a through physical examination ruling out scoliosis-like conditions, e. g., leg-length inequality and hip weakness, before sending the child for X rays. This is necessary to reduce unwarranted X rays, which are harmful to bone marrow of growing youngsters. A mathematical model is proposed and tested on seven- and eight-year old students of a local school to separate scoliosis-like conditions from true scoliosis (lateral curvatures and rotations of the spinal column), ‘Differential-Spinal-Function Testing’ (DSFT) was conducted, consisting of four tests, visual (standing), visual (sitting), forward bending (standing) and forward bending (sitting). This paper reports effectiveness of NSRW in predicting lateral curvatures and spinal rotations.
