Schroth Method

Schroth method or Schroth therapy, is a system of scoliosis assessment and exercises originated from Germany.

Schroth method was started out by Katharina Schroth (1894-1985), herself a scoliosis patient. Having worn a steel orthopaedic brace, she was inspired to treat her own scoliosis by ways of movement and breathing, when she observed the pattern of air movement in a balloon when pressure is applied on the one side. Incidentally, her first therapy clinic, was called Breathing Orthopaedics, opened in Meissen in 1921.

Over the next 100 years, Schroth method was further by Katharina and her daughter, Christa, physiotherapist, and later passed down to Christina’s son, Dr Hans-Rudolf Weiss, an orthopaedic surgeon. Today Schroth method is a sophisticated system of assessment, classification, curve-specific exercise prescription and bracing. It is the most researched and widely practiced methods for non-surgical management of AIS. 

A recent meta-analysis (synthesis of findings from multiple studies) concluded that the Schroth exercises, when appropriately and sufficiently practiced, is effective in slowing and/or reversing progression of curvatures in conservatively managed AIS patients.