Can scoliosis be slowed or prevented?

The question is can you prevent scoliosis? And I think there is some data to support that if you start bracing individuals before they develop curves of 20-degrees or more, that we may be able to slow down the progression of scoliosis. We may be able to prevent the need for surgery, certainly we may be able to prolong the time before they need surgery. If you need—the reason why you want to prolong the time that they need surgery, is you want to get them to go through the growth spurts, so they get as much growth in their spine as possible. So, if you fuse somebody who is four years of age, their spine doesn't grow anymore, so you have a very short trunk. Whereas if you can wait until someone is 12, 13, or 14, then you can hopefully get much greater spine growth and somebody has a better height, as it were. So, as far as prevention goes, we will typically, for kids who seem to be progressing with a curve towards 20 degrees or more, we will put them in a body jacket called a TLSO, which is called a Thoraco Lumbar Sacral Orthosis. People call them turtle shells, back braces, a billion different names, but some form of it. It's a hard plastic shell to maintain control, and there's differences in on how different people do it. Some people will brace 23 out of 24 hours. So the only time when you're out of the brace is when you're in the bath or shower. Others will just use the brace when individuals are upright. We typically use, at least in our center, just we'll use the brace when somebody is upright, out of bed, and try to use it as much, much as possible. So that's, that's one way to prevent or slow down the progression of scoliosis.