Variations of Scoliosis Brace Design

If we look back first at what is a brace, and really a scoliosis brace, it's a plastic shell, and that shell is just a frame to hold mechanical forces. There's nothing more to it, the shape of that shell and how it's cut out and constructed all it is just an anchoring point, and it's a structure for holding these corrective forces beyond that.

Scoliosis is a lateral deviation and axial rotation, and the only way to bring that back into balance are going to be specific force vectors that de rotate and medially translate. And there are more efficient force vectors that can accomplish that, but you have the capability in just about any most brace types anyway, to affect that. So if you go back years before bracing, and you look at traction devices, where you'd have, say, a wooden framework with straps and pulleys, and patient would sit down all day, those straps and pulleys are applying a certain force factor that's de rotating medially translating in there, correcting the deformity mechanically. But that's all we're doing within a brace. The variations among the braces, I really come down to some specifics in how we address our sagittal alignment and our balance. That's really where the differences end.