Hi Mamamax,

A lot can be taken from stroke rehab research, but keep in mind this fundamental difference. A stroke affected brain is an injured one....a scoliosis affected brain is...well, not getting, receiving, and/or sending the right message to the spine as it attempts to orient to gravity....that part isn't entirely clear yet, but the point is the scoliotic brain isn't injured like a stroke affected brain. Therefore, the rehab concepts are probably similar; the actual implementation is way different.

I am not certified in spine cor, but I do get patients who have used the spine cor brace and seen their curves progress. Most of them also saw their curves increase dramatically once they stopped using the brace......especially if they stopped using the brace cold turkey. To me, that indicates brace dependency, not an increase in spinal strength.

Again, I am only seeing the cases in which the spine cor treatment wasn't successful, so it certainly isn't a 100% fair comparison with the total spine cor population and perhaps their curves would have dramatically increased regardless if they weaned out of the brace vs stop using it all of a sudden. Everyone's scoliosis is their own and that is one of the reasons scoliosis is sooooo difficult to study.

The new CLEAR article will definitely make waves, but all of those with a vested interest (emotional, financial, or otherwise) will pick every inch of it apart and invent ways to discredit the findings regardless of what it determines anyway. So what's the point of arguing results when we should be discussing viable mechanisms and theories that would invariably lead to more effective treatment methods, which would produce better results as a by-product of the very process that lead up to the results. We need to leave this "gotcha type-politics" created by the dueling studies dilemma and come together in a "systems process" type thinking model. That would strip away all the emotional and personal incentive type clutter than drowns out productive conversation. At some point, we're going to have to put all of the "results" from all the studies down and really focus entirely on the process of figuring this out....once that happens the logic and treatment solutions will be self-evident.....and the results will follow.

"Some folks from years back have had some less than positive reviews"......Oh come on....seriously? One sided testimonials by people no one has ever met or ever will meet? How credible is that? Really? Does anyone ever wonder why no positive reviews are ever written even though we obviously have case studies that show very impressive results? Heck the one brave soul from Colorado who did post about her positive results in Dr. Woggon's office was personally attacked by everyone else on the forum and her posts were removed. Who in their right mind would dare post something positive about CLEAR after watching that public beat down? The NSF forum has become a one sided, censored, bully pulpit that has created an environment in which a small group of attack dogs roam the grounds and tear up anything that doesn't fit into their well engrained culture of "this is how we do things around here and if you don't conform to our model of how the world works we'll run you out of town".

The NSF is a good organization and does a lot of good things for patients with scoliosis, but the forum is in desperate need of a leadership and culture change. It doesn't appear to be interested in anything that challenges conventional wisdom or introduces new ideas into the discussion. That isn't healthy, productive, or helpful to any scoliosis patients anywhere.