John W. McClellan, M.D., Orthopaedic surgeon with the Alegent Health Orthopaedic Institute.
Find out more about Dr. McClellan
Q: How can I tell if my child has scoliosis?
A: Have your child bend forward with her hands together as if she were about to dive into a pool, and check to see if one side of the rib cage is higher than the other.
Other telltale signs include a curvature of the spine, an elevated shoulder or a protruding shoulder blade.
Scoliosis generally shows up between ages 10 and 14 in children with a family history. However, not every child whose parents have scoliosis, or who carries the gene, gets the disease.
The good news about scoliosis is that it's very rare and often needs little management. Only five in 1,000 kids have a spinal deformity and of those, only one in a thousand needs a brace and one in 4,000 needs an operation.
