Investigating the effect of the orthotic treatment on sagittal plane pelvic parameters in adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis: Literature review

Abstract

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a three-dimensional deformity of the spine. Morphologic changes in AIS alter the orientation of the body in all three anatomic planes. These changes may alter the angular position of the spino-pelvic and pelvic parameters. Cobb angle is the only key index used to predict the curve improvement of the patient with AIS wearing the corrective brace. The importance of the pelvic parameters is almost neglected, hence the study of these parameters as indexes in the other two planes can provide information about other aspects of brace treatments. An Internet search for terms related to AIS, orthosis and brace treatments and sagittal pelvic parameters was performed in bibliographic databases. By summarizing the obtained publications, sagittal pelvic parameters and bracing treatments of AIS were described, and their information about their relation in sagittal plane with Cobb angle in the coronal plane were reported. Pelvic incidence (PI), pelvic tilt (PT) and sacral slope (SS) are the three main sagittal pelvic parameters. PI is specialized for each person but it is changed according to the age and spino-pelvic deformities. Lumbar lordosis is related with sagittal pelvic parameters specially PI and SS. So, they can be used as sagittal plane indexes to predict the improvement procedure and treatments’ outcome. Apparently there is a relationship between spino-pelvic parameters in the skeletal chain of body. Nevertheless, this relation is clear, there is not any index in the sagittal plane to refer to, and therapists are satisfied to the only index, Cobb angle, in the coronal plane. So, introducing another index in another plane besides Cobb angle in sagittal plane, considering the three-dimensional aspect of AIS, can be very helpful to all the society which handling with.