When doctors diagnosed Crystal Braxton's Scoliosis during a routine screening at Eutaw High School, she remembers fearing the disease would quash her high school dreams.

"I just kept crying-I thought I was going to be wearing something horrible all day to school." Crystal's mom Mary Wilson shared her daughter's fears.

"I think I was more frightened than she was" Wilson said. "All I could think was that she would be wearing this awful metal thing from her neck down all day".

But University Orthopaedic Clinic orthopaedist Dr. Donald S. Scott eliminated Crystal's and her mom's worries with an alternative to the traditional chin-to-torso brace for Scoliosis, or curvature of the spine.

Rather than be trapped 23 hours a day in that confining contraption, Braxton wears the Charleston brace eight hours each night while she sleeps.

Scott said this relatively new device, which he helped to develop, lessens Scoliosis' psychological blow because teen-age patients like Braxton don't have to face their peers or limit their activity with braces.

"I was worried that I couldn't do gymnastics or anything, but Dr. Scott said that would actually help it (my back)," said the 12 year old gymnast, softball catcher, and aspiring basketball player. Diagnosed with Scoliosis in March, Braxton has already made dramatic improvements, Scott said. "If my kids had it, this is what I'd have them in," Scott said.

Of the three types of Scoliosis, the adolescent idiopathic strain is the most common and strikes primarily teen-age girls ages 10-15, Scott said. While doctors cannot always pinpoint Scoliosis' source, they can calm patient's fears about the potentially debilitating disease.

Patients who have a 25- degree and higher curvature of the spine require bracing, while those with a 55- degree or greater curvature need surgery. To use the night-time bending brace, patients must have a 32-degree or greater curvature.

While some orthopaedist prefer the traditional bending braces, more are turning to this alternative for the freedom it offers. Scott and his colleagues first tested the brace on patients who failed other types of treatment. It was also used for patients who were almost skeletally mature but continued to show curve progression. In some early cases the Charleston bending brace was used for patients who refused other treatment options. In those cases a time-modified brace was seen as preferable to no treatment.

The team that created the night-time only brace demonstrated the device's success in an orthopaedic journal. Their initial study of adolescent idiopathic Scoliosis, published in 1989, will be followed up with long-term results reported from the first study patients.

Initially, the widely used Milwaukee brace was required after surgery, then was tested on less severe cases of Scoliosis that did not require surgery. But the drawbacks, doctors discovered, were that young patients suffered psychological effects from this jacket-with-metal rings contraption and were tempted to slip out of the device at school.

In the early 1980's, Scott and several colleagues developed the breakthrough Charleston brace. Like traditional braces such as the standard Milwaukee style, the Charleston device is worn until the patient reaches maturity, about 15 years old. But, unlike its predecessors, this brace is custom-fitted to the patient's body. Because it relies on intense correction at night, the devise affords its wearers freedom during the day. In the past, Scoliosis patients wore the traditional device for 23 hours, taking it off just long enough to bathe.

Although she initially needed her parent's help to strap the hard plastic and foam Charleston brace on, Braxton said she "slips in and out real quick now." The morning soreness usually subsides after three hours, she said.

"I know that because I've been wearing it, it's been helping and the problem's been going down a lot," Braxton said.

"This is the most wonderful thing we could have done," Braxton's mother said.

Reprinted with permission from The Tuscaloosa News