Scoliosis Brace for Adults: Spinecor Brace : Scoliosisspecialists.com

Scoliosis Glossary

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Allograft Bone - Sterile bone derived from another human, which is used for grafting procedures.

Amaurosis - Loss of vision without discoverable lesion in the eye structures or optic nerve. Amaurosis fugax is temporary blindness occurring in short periods.

Amenorrhea - Absence of the menses due to causes other than pregnancy or advancing age.

Amnesia - Loss of memory caused by brain damage or by severe emotional trauma.

Anesthesia - Loss of sensation of the body or of a body part when induced by the administration of a drug.

Anesthesiologist - Physician who provides pain control and support of life functions during surgery.

Aneurysm - Dilation of an artery, formed by a circumscribed enlargement of its wall. A saccular or berry aneurysm is a sac-like bulging on one side of an artery usually arising at an arterial branching.

Ankylosing Spondylitis - Stiffening or fixation of the vertebra; an inflammatory joint disease mainly affecting the spine, hips, and pelvis.

Anorexia - Loss of appetite; a condition marked by loss of appetite leading to weight loss.

Anosmic - Lacking the sense of smell.

Anoxia - Total lack of oxygen supply.

Anterior Approach - Used to approach the cervical, cervicodorsal, dorsal, and lumbar spines, it is designed to provide sufficient surface for multiple segmental spinal fusions.

Anterior Cervical Discectomy - An operation where the cervical spine is reached through a small incision in the front of your neck. After the soft tissues of the neck are separated, the intervertebral disc and back spurs are removed.

Anterior Cervical Discectomy with Fusion - An operation performed on the upper spine to relieve pressure on one or more nerve roots, the spinal cord. The term is derived from the words anterior (front), cervical (neck), and fusion (joining the vertebrae with a bone graft).

Anterior Fusion - Fusion performed on the front of the spine, usually by replacing intervertebral discs with bone chips.

Anterior Horn - A front portion of the Copes brace to correct the forward rotation of the upper shoulder area.

Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion (ALIF) - Operation where the lumbar spine is approached through an incision in the abdomen. A portion of the affected disc space is removed from the spine and replaced with an implant.

Anterior Spinal Fusion - Approaching the spine from the front, the intervertable disc and/or vertebral body is removed and bone guards are inserted. Some variations of this procedure include the Smith-Robinson, Cloward and Dowel procedures.

Anterior Spurring - Ligament turning to bone on anterior side vertebral body.

Anterolateral - Situated or occurring in front of and to the side.

Anterolateral Approach - An approach to the dorsal spine resection to explore the spine anteriorly and in some cases to do spinal fusions and decompressions spinal cord.

Arthralgia - Joint pain.

Arthrodesis - The fusion of bones across a joint space thereby limiting or eliminating movement. It may occur spontaneously or as result of a surgical procedure, such as fusion of the spine.

Arthroscope - An instrument inserted into its joint cavity to veil the interior of a joint and corrects certain abnormalities. An arthroscope is an endoscope for use in a joint.

Arthroscopy - The procedure of visualizing the inside of a joint by means of an arthroscope.

Ataxia - A loss of muscular coordination, abnormal clumsiness.

Atlas - First cervical vertebrae, articulating with the occipital bone rotating around the dens of the axis.

Atrophy - A wasting of the tissues of a body part.

Autogenous Bone - Bone originating from the same individual, i.e., an individual’s own bone.

Autograft Bone - Bone transplanted from one part of the body to another in the same individual.

Axon - The part of a nerve cell that usually sends signals to other nerves or structures

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Banks-Dervin Rod - For scoliosis fixation; a multiple level rod fixed with oblique spoinous process to contra-lateral lamina screws.

Blood/Brain Barrier - The barrier that exists between the cerebrospinal fluid, which prevents the passage of various substances from the bloodstream to the brain.

Bone Derivative - One of the substances extracted from bone, as bone morphogenic proteins (BMP).

Bone Graft - Pieces of bone used to create a fusion, obtained from the patient’s iliac crest, rib, or from the bone bank.

Bone Harvesting - The removal of bone for transplation to another site. The most common sources are the iliac crests because these bones contain a large amount of cancellous bone, the inner spongy part, which is useful for getting grafts to “take.”

Bone Morphogenetic Protein-2 (BMP-2) - One of a family BMPs -- naturally occurring chemicals in the body -- that play a major in bone growth. BMP-like products: proteins that enhance mineralize which can increase bone formation.

Bone Screw - A threaded metal device that is inserted into bones. The functions of bone screws are to immobilize bones or bone fragments or to affix other medical devices, such as metal plates, to bone.

Bone - The hard tissue that provides structural support to the body primarily composed of hydroxyapatite crystals and collagen. Individual bones may be classed as long, short, or flat.

Boston Brace - A type of spinal orthosis (brace) developed at the Children’s Hospital, Boston. The Boston Brace System starts with prefabricated, symmetric spinal orthotic modules of different sizes.

Brown-Sequard’s Syndrome - Loss of sensation of touch, position sense, and movement on the side of a spinal cord lesion, loss of pain sensation on the other side. Caused by a lesion limited to one side of the spinal cord.

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Cancellous Bone - The spongy or honeycomb structure of solid bone tissue typically found at the ends of long bones.

Cartilage - The hard, thin layer of white glossy tissue that covers the end of bone at a joint. This tissue allows motion to take place with a minimum amount of friction.

Cauda Equina Syndrome - Sufficient pressure on the nerves to the low back to produce multiple nerve root irritation and commonly of bowel and bladder control.

Cauda Equina - The bundle of spinal nerve roots arising from the top of the spinal cord and filling the lower part of the spinal canal (from approximately the thoracic-lumbar junction down).

C-D Rods - Drs. Cotrel and Dubousset designed this popular form of spinal instrumentation, which was the first type of rod system to use multiple hooks on one rod which could be turned in either direction. C-D, TSRH, and other similar systems are popular because they offer more strength of fixation, more points of attachment to the spine and can help preserve or restore normal spinal contours of thoracic kyphosis and lumbar lordosis.

Central Cord Syndrome - Most common of the incomplete traumatic spinal cord syndromes characterized by motor impairments is proportionately greater in the upper limbs than in the lower, with bladder dysfunction and a variable degree of sensory loss below the level of the cord lesion.

Central Nervous System - Part of the nervous system which consists of the brain and spinal cord, to which sensory impulses are transmitted and from which motor impulses pass out, and which supervises and coordinates the activity of the entire nervous system.

Cerebellum - The lower part of the brain, which is beneath the posterior portion of the cerebrum and regulates unconscious coordination of movement.

Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) - Water-like fluid produced in the spine that circulates around and protects the brain and spinal cord. Shrinking or expanding of the cranial contents is usually quickly balanced by increase or decrease of this fluid.

Cervical Spinal Fusion - Spinal fusion involving the seven cervical segments. This may include the base of the skull, the occip and the first thoracic spine.

Chiropractic Manipulation - A precise biomechanical manual maneuver to reduce or eliminate the axis misaliment of a joint or joints.

CLF Board - The Copes Lateral Fulcrum Board is an instrument designed to derogate and elongate the scolotic spine. External plastic device to accelerate curve correction. Used in conjunction with the Copes Scoliosis Brace.

Cobalt-Chrome - A term that is used in deferring to cobalt-chuomium-molybednum alloy, a mixture of metals used in many surgical implants.

Coma - A state of profound unconsciousness from which one can rouse.

Compression - A squeezing together; the exertion of pressure on the body in such a way as to tend to increase its density; the decrease dimension of a body under the action of two external forces direction toward one another in the same straight line.

Compression of Nerve Root - Mechanical process resulting a tumor, fracture, or herniated disc; the resulting irritation is called radiculitis if there is actual inflammation around the nerve. Pain front type of disorder is called radicular pain.

Computed Tomography (CT) Scan - A diagnostic imaging technique in which a computer reads x-rays to create a three-dimensional map of soft tissue or bone.

Congenital Scoliosis - Scoliosis due to bony abnormalities present at birth involving either failure of formation of a vertebra or separation of adjacent vertebrae.

Copes Brace - The Copes brace is the first dynamitic corrective scolotic brace. This brace is custom casted, designed, and fabricated to the patient. This brace has air injected force vectors, which are sertregacly placed in the interphase of the brace. Air is injected at six-week intervals to achieve spinal and torsal correction.

Cortical Bone - The dense bone that forms the outer surface of bone.

Cramp - A painful muscle spasm caused by prolonged titanic contraction.

Crankshaft Phenomenon - Progressions of a spinal curve continued growth of the unfused anterior aspect of the spine following a posterior spine fusion for scoliosis in children.

Crankshaft Syndrome - The fused portion of the spine does not grow, but the area that does continue to grow begins to twist the spine.

Cytology - The study of cells.