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posted by chromas on Friday April 06 2018, @08:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the health++ dept.

For children with severe cerebral palsy (CP), surgery for scoliosis (sideways curvature of the spine) significantly improves the quality of life (QoL) for them and their caregivers, reports a study in the April 4, 2018, issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The journal is published in partnership with Wolters Kluwer.

"Scoliosis surgery in patients with CP leads to a significant improvement in health-related QoL, which is maintained five years following surgery," write Firoz Miyanji, MD, of British Columbia Children's Hospital, Vancouver, and colleagues from seven other North American medical centers. Their study provides evidence that surgery for scoliosis improves outcomes important to severely disabled children with CP and their parents/caregivers -- outweighing the substantial rate of complications during the first year after surgery.

[...] Surgery may be performed to stop scoliosis progression. However, the true benefits of surgery in improving QoL are difficult to quantify in these complex cases. Dr. Miyanji and colleagues used a validated questionnaire specifically designed for evaluation of children with severe CP -- the Caregiver Priorities and Child Health Index of Life with Disabilities, or "CPCHILD" -- to assess the impact of scoliosis surgery at one, two, and five years postoperatively.

Scoliosis surgery significantly reduced the spinal curvature. On a standard x-ray measurement (Cobb angle), the curve was reduced from the severe to the mild-to-moderate range, on average. The improvement remained stable through two and five years after surgery.

Analysis of the CPCHILD scores showed improvements QoL for the patients with CP and their caregivers. In addition to improvement in the total CPCHILD score, there were improvements in the areas of personal care, positioning, and comfort. Overall, 92 percent of caregivers reported that their child's QoL was better one year after scoliosis surgery. Like the x-ray improvements, the gains in QoL persisted throughout follow-up.

As in previous studies of scoliosis surgery in children with CP, complications were common. This was especially so during the first year after surgery, when 46 percent of patients experienced a complication, most commonly pneumonia and surgical site infections. However, the first-year complications had little or no impact on QoL outcomes.


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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday April 06 2018, @11:45PM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Friday April 06 2018, @11:45PM (#663585) Homepage Journal

    All the girls were tested for scoliosis in seventh grade

    But I know a man who had scoliosis when he was a teenager. It was overlooked until it was too late to correct with a brace. He had to have spinal fusion.

    Now he suffers chronic pain

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