Common Questions & Glossary

Our goal in preparing and disseminating this information is to provide patients or parents with a better understanding of scoliosis and its diagnosis and management, using idiopathic scoliosis—the most common type—as a model. This information is intended as a supplement to the information your physician will provide you. Just as no two individuals are exactly alike, no two patients with a spinal curvature are the same. Therefore, your orthopaedic surgeon will be the most important source of information about the management of your particular spinal problem. Here, orthopaedic surgeons from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the Scoliosis Research Society answer some of the questions they most commonly hear from patients and their parents.