Prof. Santos Sastre, University of Barcelona, President, Association Espanola de Fisioterapia, Director of Rehabilitation Center and Physical Medicine.
Conservative treatment of spine deviations is often prescribed without much enthusiasm or conviction. Many specialists believe that it is a waste of time and money. Encouraged by the results obtained applying the conservative treatment of deviations of the spine, we researched -- first in animals (rabbits), later in human beings, both during their growth period -- the effects of the conservative, dynamic and instrumentalized treatment: the F.E.D. method. We submit the results obtained with 174 scoliosis patients, of ages ranging 5 and 41, and an average age of 13.4. The average initial Risser was 2.21. Initially, all of them had structured scoliosis curves, with different etiologies, many of them evolutionary, with Cobb angels of between 6 and 66 and an average Cobb of 23.07_. Vertebral rotation ranged from 2 to 41 (Raimondi). The treatment applied was based on electrotherapy, thermotherapy (preparatory phase), vertebral traction, use of the F.E.D. unit (with traditional fixation of the spine, elongation, derotation and inflexion or inversion of the curves), as well as analytical kinesitherapeutic techniques, hyper and seld-corrective kinesthetic consciousness of the orthostatic position, selective for each curve. The results drawn from this study and its analysis, allow us to assure that the therapeutic procedure employed -- the F.E.D. method -- is effective. The corrections achieved are permanent, it is non-aggressive, well tolerated, and affordable.