The Schroth Physiotherapeutic Method was developed in the 1920′s by Katharina Schroth who essentially had no formal training and was a scoliosis patient that struggled with spinal bracing both physically and psychologically. She discovered that breathing exercises for scoliosis and her position of her body could improve the shape of her scoliosis spine. She later developed an official methodology with formal training requirements and founded her clinic in Bad Sobernheim, Germany in 1961 which still exists today. Many physical therapists have been trained to provide the Schroth method to scoliosis patients either at an intensive level many hours a day over the course of weeks or at an expanded care program with homecare over the course of months. The Schroth method is often an adjunct to spinal bracing and most often prescribed with the Chaneau brace essentially a guided growth rigid orthosis designed by Dr. Manuel Rigo of Barcelona, Spain.
The foundation of the Schroth method is breathing combined with postural positioning. The theory is that if a scoliosis patient learns how to position their body and consciously controls this it will be able to correct their existing deformity at least partially. In addition breathing air into the shallow areas of the rib deformation termed rotational angular breathing will also create corrective shape changes in the ribcage. There are published case studies which demonstrate the effectiveness of this program. The case studies presented were of patients that had followed extreme regiments of exercises and were supervised and instructed one on one for hours at a time over the course of 4 to 6 weeks while in Germany. The post x-rays and posture were taken following these extremely intense sessions and certainly demonstrate positive changes.
The Schroth program uses conscious effort to self correct your scoliosis, a noble idea and certainly one that has existed for close to 100 years with some success. The simple fact is that exercise empowers the patient with scoliosis to do something where as the orthopedic community relies on bruit force and an ideology that we will fix it for you with a rigid orthosis or with titanium rods. I think if a patient were to workout 6 hours a day 7 days a week for a year or more doing corrective postural positions and breathing exercises they would probably see some improvement and definitely be better off than wearing a brace or fusing the spine.
The fundamental difference between the CLEAR scoliosis treatment system is that CLEAR uses a two step protocol. The first step is decrease soft tissue resistance via continuous passive motion combined with traction de-rotation forces to disengage elastic deformation from soft tissue adapting to the scoliosis followed by a second step call neuromuscular reeducation which uses weight added to the spine in various locations to influence a reactive change directed by the brain under subconscious control to alter the firing of intrinsic muscles(deep layer muscles) in order to change the neural output to that muscle which alters muscle tone. I realize that was a mouthful but in simpler terms CLEAR is fundamentally different because the exercise is directed by the subconscious righting reflexes and not by conscious effort which only effects larger more superficial muscle groups that have to be continuously worked in order to alter body position. CLEAR was developed by doctors that specialize in spinal rehabilitation who were looking for something that took less effort, time, and created more permanent reductions.
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