Corrective exercise-based therapy for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective to analyze the efficacy of Corrective exercise-based therapy in the improvement of deformity and quality of life in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. Data sources PubMed Medline, Scopus, Web of Science (WOS), Physiotherapy Evidence Database, CINAHL Complete and SciELO, until June 2021. Review methods Randomized controlled trials was selected, including participants diagnosed with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, in which the experimental group received Corrective exercise-based therapy. Two authors independently searched the scientific literature in the data sources, extracted the data and assessed the risk of bias. A pairwise meta-analysis using the random-effects model was performed. Results Eight randomized controlled trials providing data from 279 adolescent idiopathic scoliosis patients were included. Seven randomized controlled trials including 236 patients showed moderate-quality evidence for a medium effect (SMD = -0.52, 95% CI -0.96 to -0.1), favoring corrective exercise-based therapy for spinal deformity reduction. Corrective exercise-based therapy was better than no intervention (SMD = -0.59, 95% CI -1.18 to -0.01) but similar to other intervention (SMD = -0.2, 95% CI -0.67 to 0.27), and a medium effect was found (SMD = -0.51, 95% CI -0.89 to -0.13) when corrective exercise-based therapy was used with other therapies. Four studies including 151 patients showed low-quality evidence of a large effect of Corrective exercise-based therapy on Scoliosis Research Society measurement (SRS-22) total score improvement (SMD = 1.16, 95% CI 0.36 to 1.95). Conclusion In mild and moderate adolescent idiopathic scoliosis patients, corrective exercise-based therapy could be used to reduce spinal deformity and to improve quality of life as isolated treatment or as coadjuvant treatment combined with other therapeutic resources.