13-year-old Amelia has adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, a condition which has caused curvature of the spine. Amelia’s mum first noticed the curve in her spine around 16 months ago but over that time it has gotten progressively worse.
Amelia has a double curve and has come to the Great North Children’s Hospital to have a complex operation to straighten her spine.
Surgery will be performed but consultant orthopaedic spinal surgeon Mr Andy Bowey: “The type of scoliosis Amelia has tends to affect teenagers and unfortunately children can be unkind to each other and certainly if they notice any abnormalities in their shape they can tease each other and it has a huge effect on children’s mental wellbeing and anxiety.”
As Amelia is prepared for surgery mum Angela reflects on just how brave Amelia has been “Amelia and I are really close, she’s an independent girl but she still loves her mummy. She’s never once cried or said why me or asked why have I got this wrong with my back – she’s so accepting of it.”
For Amelia, surgery is her only option, because of the magnitude of her curve if it was left to progress it would get worse every year of her life. Andy explains: “When she hits late adulthood she’d have a really big curve which would definitely cause problems with pain and potential restriction of her lung function.”
The pain from her spine has made things difficult for dancer Amelia who would be heartbroken if the condition means she had to stop dancing.
The surgery to correct the double curve in Amelia’s spine is complex and comes with a number of risks including paralysis. In this episode we see Andy brief his theatre team prior to surgery Amelia and her mum head to theatre “It’s really hard as a mum to just walk away from, her knowing she has all these tubes attached and she’s going in for major surgery. It’s just awful you just want to be there and holding their hand.”
The complex procedure has two stages, the first inserting screws into the spine followed by attaching metal rods to pull the spine straight. Spinal physicists put electrodes onto Amelia’s back to monitor her spine throughout the surgery. “They work as an early warning system so that when we straighten the spine we don’t cause any harm.” Explains Andy.
During surgery Andy begins to insert the screws into Amelia’s spine and uses an x-ray camera to carefully monitor the placing of the screws which need to go in with pin point accuracy to prevent damage to Amelia’s spinal cord, blood vessels, lungs or abdomen.
Once the screws are in place the final stage is reached and two rods are inserted into Amelia’s spine to correct her double curve. Her spine is de-rotated to make sure that the alignment is just right. As Amelia also has a problem with prominent ribs Andy also removes small sections of the most prominent ribs so they then flatten themselves down.
After a four hour operation Andy shows Amelia the x-rays of her new straight spine and she is delighted: “That’s amazing, that is so good, thank you so much.”
The procedure was a huge success and one day after surgery Amelia is on her feet and is now three centimetres taller than her mum “Oh my gosh I’ve grown!”
Even better news for dancer Amelia, Andy says: “She’ll be incredibly flexible so it’s not going to have any impact on her career as a dancer so I think she’s going to have a full and happy life.”
