Scoliosis is a lateral twist of the spine.
There are effectively 2 types of scoliosis. One is a permanent structural problem with the bones of the spine and is usually present from birth. The second is a temporary adjustment to some other imbalance in the body – very often making an adjustment for a difference in leg length.
It can be important to understand which type of scoliosis we are dealing with when looking at someone with both back pain and a scoliosis – we fix the ones that are fixable, and work with those that are not.