Scoliosis metal rods attached to a plastic or leather girdle, designed to straighten the spine. As a result of the constant pressure the brace inflicted on a patients' spine, it was particularly painful and inconvenient to wear due to physical limits it imposed. Wearing the brace was known to cause jaw pain, skin irritation, muscle pain and low self-esteem among patients. The 'Harrington rod' technique was the second major treatment for scoliosis to emerge and became the first significant surgical procedure to manipulate spinal positioning. This treatment was initially developed to treat paralytic scoliosis that resulted from the polio epidemic of
Management of scoliosis of bracing has not been definitively demonstrated in randomised clinical studies, with more limited studies giving inconsistent conclusions. In 2013 the Bracing in Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis Trial (BrAIST) published results establishing benefits of bracing in adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis. In the randomized cohort, 72% in the group instructed to wear a brace for 18 hours per day against 48% in the observation group sustained curve progression to under 50 degrees, the proxy used for not requiring surgery. Additionally results suggested that the more a patient wore the brace, the better the result. In progressive infantile and sometimes juvenile scoliosis, a