Schroth method book pdf download

The history of conservative treatment of scoliosis is rather long and leads us back to the original methods of Hippocrates ( BC) [1]. Although more than two thousand years have passed since the century of Hippocrates, the main approach of conservative scoliosis treatment has been based on mechanical viewpoints still in the early 20th Century and in most of the approaches still existing today. Correction exercises were widely distributed in whole of Europe during the last two centuries; some of them were using three therapists for one patient (Figure 1) during scoliosis correction [2].

The history of the Schroth method is a history involving the professional work of three generations. The initiation of the programme was the result of Katharina Schroths studies (Additional file 1 and 2), in part a development from studying her own body, her own spinal function and the corrective movements possible. Mirror monitoring plays an important role in the original Schroth programme so as to allow synchronizing the corrective movement and the postural perception with the visual input (Figure 2). As breathing and its functional correction played an important role, her first pamphlet focused on breathing in general [3] and later on also describing the importance of postural perception by the patient and its improvement with the help of specific correction exercises [4, 5].

In the 70's Christa Lehnert-Schroth further developed the method and introduced a simple classification, which is still used today by physiotherapists (Figure 3). Additionally, she discovered the importance of the lumbosacral (counter-) curve (4th Curve) for pattern specific postural correction and described all this in her book, which was first published in and is now available in the 7th edition [6]. This historically important book is also available in English and Korean [7].

In the 90's, Dr. Rigo and the author constantly improved the programme and as a result of this collaboration the book ‚Befundgerechte Physiotherapie bei Skoliose' was written by both of them (1st edition ) until the second edition appeared in [8] and the book was translated into Spanish [9].

In the latest developments were published including new educational approaches and the correction of the sagittal profile [10, 11] and now the 3rd edition of the German book ‚Befundgerechte Physiotherapie bei Skoliose' is dedicated to these new aspects [12].

The history of all this, however began in East Germany in the first decade of the last century:

How it all started

Katharina Schroth, born February 22nd in Dresden Germany, was suffering from a moderate scoliosis herself and underwent treatment with a steel brace at the age of 16 before she decided to develop a more functional approach of treatment for herself ().

Inspired by a balloon, she tried to correct by breathing away the deformities of her own trunk by inflating the concavities of her body selectively in front of a mirror. She also tried to ‚mirror' the deformity, by overcorrecting with the help of certain pattern specific corrective movements. Additionally, she recognized that postural control can only be achieved by changing postural perception. These aspects were published as early as and later on [3–5] and were elaborated even more during the first decade of her professional career as a gymnast.

Katharina Schroth began her professional life as a teacher at a Business & Language school, however she decided to leave this field and undergo training at a gymnast's school in order to be able to treat patients herself.

From on this new form of treatment with specific postural correction, correction of breathing and correction of postural perception was performed with rehabilitation times of three to sometime six months in her own little institute in Meissen (Figure 4, 5) and from the late 30's she was supported by her daughter, Christa Schroth (Figure 6, 7).

During that time, patients with curvatures exceeding 80° with huge rib humps and very stiff deformities of different origins were the main attraction (Figure 8, 9 and 10).

Besides individual exercises, also with passive manual correction by a therapist, a group setting was established allowing the treatment of patients with similar curve patterns in one group (Figure 11).

The institute had a large garden and a little hut with some helpful tools for individal and group treatment. Most of the treatment was carried out in the garden, fresh air and sunrays increased the patient's general health at a time where people were not used to exposing their skin to the sun or indeed to other people (Figure 12).

Mirror monitoring has always been important as can be seen in Figure 2 and 10 in an individual session of patients in front of a mirror treated by Christa Schroth in the 40's.

Franz Schroth, Katharina Schroth's husband, also helped in the first institute with individual corrections and special strengthening exercises (Figure 13).

As early as in the late 20's of the last century a battle of methods began. A Professor from Leipzig (Prof. Scheede), where Hoffa exercises were performed, fought against the little centre of Katharina Schroth heavily as she was neither a professional trainer, nor a physician, but had started her programme as a schoolteacher who followed a class of gymnasts after she had started her insitute.

After World War II Katharina Schroth was forced to leave her little institute in Meissen. Before she went to the West she was employed by the state to offer her services together with her daughter in a medical centre at Gottleuba during the early 50's.

New start in the West

After World War II, Katharina Schroth and her daughter moved to West Germany to open a new little institute in Sobernheim in the early 60's, which constantly grew to a clinic with sometimes more than in-patients treated as a rule for 6 weeks (Figure 14 and 15). After her divorce from her first husband, Ernst Weiss, Christa Schroth married Adalbert Lehnert, who helped her to build up this new centre and who was also involved in the treatment of patients (Figure 16).

In the 70's a series of investigations were carried out with respect to vital capacity improvements and improvement of cardiopulmonary function contributing to the acknowledgement of the method at some universities [13, 14].

It was also in the 70's, when the impact of the lumbosacral curve on the correction of certain curve patterns was discovered [15, 16].

Christa Lehnert-Schroth recognized the spontaneous correction of a functional leg length discrepancy just by straightening the lumbar curve [15].

In the 80's the institute, ‚Sanatorium Lehnert-Schroth' was renamed to ‚Katharina Schroth Klinik' while Katharina Schroth was not as active as in the 60's and early 70's. Nevertheless, she fought constantly for her method of treatment and had lots of arguments with professors from different German universities.

More emphasis at that time was laid upon the correction of pelvic asymmetries to address the lumbosacral curve and unfortunately the powerful corrections initially defining the treatment of Katharina Schroth were increasingly lost.

This was the time of making the treatment more and more complicated, focusing on little deviations while the main curvature correction was drifting out of sight.

More patients with curvature angles of less than 40° and typical flatback deformities were treated, but there was no real development towards a systematical correction of the sagittal profile. While the original programme was for thoracic curves exceeding 80° with trunk rotations and rib humps leading to a more kyphotic inclination of the trunk, the moderate curvatures were addressed quite well in the frontal and coronal plane, but the sagittal profile was still underestimated. The only correction of a thoracic flatback was through rotational breathing while the starting positions of the exercises was still with both arms in elevation increasing the flatback deformity (Figure 17 and 18).