It’s important to know what is going on in your body. And sometimes it’s hard to know, so we want to help you! If you have normal x-rays, they can be hard to read without your doctor’s help. And sometimes there are x-rays or images with extra notes on them.
Here we have an example x-ray of a patient with scoliosis. As we go left to right, you’ll see that certain things are highlighted. It’s important to note the two words and letters that are circled. The “R” means that is the patients right side. They also write that the x-ray was taken standing, which is important if the patient could or has scoliosis.
The vertebral angles are taken at the bottom and top of the curve, then the vertebral axis is found. The vertebral axis can be thought of as the line where the spine was supposed to be. The “17.8” is the measured degrees of the curve from the vertebral axis.
The last thing to note is the type of scoliosis. This is a “C” scoliosis, as in it is curved like the letter “C.” There are 3 other types of scoliosis.