Objective compliance of adolescent girls with idiopathic scoliosis in a dynamic SpineCor brace

Purpose Dynamic SpineCor was designed to overcome the disadvantages of rigid orthoses-bulkiness, physical constraint and warming-and to improve the acceptance and compliance as limiting factors of brace treatment. Those theoretical benefits have not been proved by compliance studies yet. Methods SpineCor braces of 12 adolescent scoliotic girls were equipped with flexible temperature loggers, which were sandwiched between gel foam and the brace's pelvic base. Patients and parents were blinded for the observation period of 14 days and gave post-hoc consent. The logger yielded 672 time-stamped values at 30-min intervals. Pilot testing revealed values beyond the 30 degrees C threshold as indicative for brace wear. Results The average overall compliance (% wearing hours/ prescribed 23 h) was 54% +/- 22.3 (range, 11.8-95.8%). The youngest patients (aged 10-12 years) were significantly more compliant than the others (P<0.05). Most patients had a scattered wearing pattern: one was a day-wearer, one a night-wearer and only the two high adherers showed a consistent daily pattern. There was no significant difference between weekdays, weekdays and weekends, nor between day and night wear. Conclusion The current study showed that the compliance of patients in a dynamic SpineCor is as limited as in a conventional brace. This is in line with earlier data on patients' SpineCor and rigid brace acceptance evaluated by a questionnaire and on temperature logging in rigid braces.