Kari Burlam is among the estimated 2% of the female population to have the spinal deformity scoliosis. While she is not alone in living with the condition, she's taking a different approach to managing it: chiropractic care. The 21-year old Eau Claire woman visits Schwab Chiropractic Clinic for regular adjustments and rehabilitation. Chiropractor Matt Schwab maintains that the combination maximizes treatments and can actually straighten the spine.

About three months ago Schwab purchased a $1,500.00 vibrating scoliosis traction chair, a piece of equipment that combines vibration therapy with traction. Scoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine, winds patients' backs like a corkscrew, Schwab said. The chair works to reverse the rotation by uplifting the spine and strengthening posture muscles. It changes the spine and causes the body to more appropriately adapt, he said. For example, a woman who wears a weighty purse on one shoulder will develop uneven shoulders in time. Wearing equipment such as a shoulder weight on the other side can reduce that angle, he said. The same principle goes for forward head posture, a common postural problem that Schwab said can be corrected with head weights.

His clinic uses other equipment to rehabilitate patients as well, including a machine called Spine-Force, designed to strengthen spinal muscles. Schwab believes incorporating such technologies goes beyond standard chiropractic adjustments and improves results.

"The overall goal is not to have them dependent on our office, so when they leave here they have the tools to take care of their own spine", he said. "They have all the head and shoulder weights, and everything they need to do basically is at their own home after we're out of the picture." The program is roughly three months long - requiring three to four visits per week for the first month, two to three the second and one the third - but patients are recommended to come back for checkups. Though his equipment doesn't work with everyone, Schwab said it has the potential to take out small and large scoliotic curves.

He knows the claim sounds improbable but says patients' x-rays confirm it. "The only way to prove it is pre and post x-rays", he said. "Sure, and they feel better. That's a bonus, but the actual proof is in the x-ray." In about two months, Burlam's two curves, once a 27 and 36 degrees, have reduced to 16 and 24, respectively. Along with that, her associated back pain has diminished greatly. "Now I am able to lift my 30-pound son without a problem,"Burlum said.

Jay LaGaurdia, a chiropractor at Stucky Chiropractic and president of the Chippewa Valley Chiropractic Alliance, was reluctant to comment on his colleague's equipment without firsthand knowledge of it. "All I can say is if there's support in the literature for its effectiveness then I think it should be looked at as a tool - a part of the approach to assisting patients", LaGaurdia said. But Dr. Sunil Thomas, an orthopedic spine surgeon at Eau Claire Spine and Orthopedics, isn't sure the supporting data is there. "Anecdotal evidence is not enough," he said. "All methods they have talked about, they definitely may have some validity to them," Thomas said. "But you need to have proven studies to show that these things work. They have to be randomized, controlled studies, and they should go through the peer review process."

Schwab conceded he didn't have studies like Thomas requested but referenced a relevant case study. A September 2004 article in Bio-Med Central's Musculoskeletal Disorders Journal suggested that the combined use of spinal manipulation and postural therapy appeared to significantly reduce the severity of a subject's spinal curve. Twenty- two patients were studied during four to six weeks of treatment, although three were excluded from the study for missing exercises for more than two days. According to the study, the treatment group members averaged a 17-degree reduction in their curves.

Schwab called the results promising but agreed they merit further testing. Thomas trained at the Minnesota Spine Center, one of the country's leading institutions that has pioneered several studies on scoliosis treatment. In controlled randomized studies, the only non-operative form of treatment the center has shown to be effective is bracing, he said.

Thomas believes chiropractic has a place in treating scoliosis but questioned whether outpatient visits could correct complicated spinal deformities in such a short amount of time. That said, however, he said any type of aerobic conditioning to keep postural muscles strong and the trunk flexible and limber "would be advocated from a rehabilitation standpoint."

Lauren Nelson-Bobb, a physical therapist at St. Joseph's Hospital in Chippewa Falls, doesn't use machinery or adjustments when treating scoliosis patients but does what she calls "mobilizations" which are "kind of a gentler version" of chiropractic manipulations. The idea is to increase mobility - elongating tight muscles and strengthening weak ones and it's often done through exercises and teaching good body mechanics.

"You're not necessarily going to change the curve, but you try to get them as balanced as you can", Nelson-Bobb said. She knows people often are believers or non-believers in chiropractic and said she is personally supportive of whatever helps the patient - patients like Julie Barnett. The 48-year old Chippewa Falls woman was diagnosed with scoliosis 20 years ago. Medical doctors and chiropractors were historically able to do little for the pain associated with her two 37 and 24 degree curves, but she said two months of Dr. Schwab's treatment plan has made a difference. "In two months I have been able to rake my lawn with no backache," she said. "Before, everything I did hurt. Now I am at the point where I can do things without humping over like an old lady."