Spine20

Symposium #4

Children and Adolescent Spine

Subject overview

In the past, back pain was considered to be uncommon problem among children and adolescents, however, recent reports suggest that back pain is relatively common in this age group. Approximately 50% of kids and teenagers experience back pain at some point, up to 10% of them may have it severe enough to keep them out of school or sports. Although most back pain is generally not due to an underlying serious problem, this is not always the case, conditions like tumors, infections, deformities, spondylolysis or trauma should be always rolled out, as a matter of fact, some spine diseases may worsen severely in absence of back pain as a clinical presentation. Parents and spine practitioner should always have a high index of suspicion to rolled out the presence of red flags in the kids’ clinical presentation.

Symposium Objective

1. Highlight the importance of the unique nature of spine health in kids and adolescent.
2. Develop recommendations that address preventive, detective and quality interventions measures in approaching and managing back pain.

Topics Highlights

» Healthy spine in a healthy child; proper nutrition and efficient physical exercises.
» Back Pain in growing child, should we get worried?
» Early detection of major spine pathologies in kids, how could we make it efficient.
» Complexity of pediatric spine pathology, expertise and resources.
» Spine pathologies in kids, do they behave different.
» Access to quality spine care for kids in limited recourses areas, how could we help?.