The best therapeutic exercise methods based on age, Cobb and trunk rotation angles in children and adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: A systematic review

The promising results of idiopathic scoliosis for children and adolescent idiopathic scoliosis found in low-quality in review of literature in Iran.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of various types of exercises to improve idiopathic scoliosis in terms of reducing Cobb angle and angle of trunk rotation (ATR) in different ages of children and adolescents.

Searches were conducted in databases including Cochrane, PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar during 2005-2021. Inclusion criteria were papers using only corrective exercises (CE) or CEs with braces as an intervention. The PEDro scale was used for evaluating the quality of papers.

Thirteen papers were licensed for review. The papers (PEDro: 4-9) showed the positive effect of the CEs in reducing Cobb angle (eleven papers) and ATR (eight papers) greater than 5° and 3°, respectively. Moreover, two papers (PEDro: 4-7) showed that the physiotherapy scoliosis specific exercises (PSSE) were more effective than the general exercises (GE), while no paper was found to compare one PSSE to another. Two papers (PEDro: 6-9) indicated the greater effectiveness of CEs in childhood than adolescence.

The relative evidence suggested the effect of CEs on improving idiopathic scoliosis, especially in children. However, it seems that the use of SEAS and Schroth methods, depending on the individual nature, can be more effective. High-quality papers are necessary to achieve more accurate results in the future.