Study of brace treatment compliance in patients with idiopathic scoliosis

Aim. This study is designed to prospectively evaluate the objective compliance of brace treatment in the patients with idiopathic scoliosis and to evaluate factors related to the compliance. Methods. Subjects were 56 consecutive patients with late onset idiopathic scoliosis, 51 females and 5 males. Inclusion criteria were curvature of more than 20 degrees and less than 45 degrees of Cobb angle before brace treatment. The prescribed wearing hours were from 8 hours to 23 hours per day, which were upon the magnitude of curvatures. The compliance was determined by the percentage of actual brace wearing hours measured by an electronic thermal sensor to the prescribed hours, which was compared with the compliance reported by patients. Results. The compliance measured by the sensor was 75% of prescribed hours. There was a trend that the patients of lower age showed higher compliance (84% in 10-, 77% in 12- and 60% in 14- year-old patients on average). The compliance determined from the reported hours by patients was 85% of prescribed hours. Conclusions. 1; Compliance of brace treatment in idiopathic scoliosis patients to the prescribed hours varies and is 75% on average. 2 : The compliance reported by patients is higher than that measured using the sensor. 3 : The younger patients showed the higher compliance. 4 : It is very important to know objective compliance monitoring for assessment the efficacy of the brace treatment.