Our Story

Imagine this: You’re at the beach with your 13-year-old teen. They bend over to pick up a towel and you notice a hump on one side of their back. Upon returning home, you go to your family doctor. Your teen is asked to bend forward, and the doctor glances at their back. “It looks like it might be scoliosis, so let’s send for an X-Ray.” Walking out of the clinic, your mind is buzzing with questions.

A week later, the X-Ray results show a 38° C-shaped curve in your child’s spine. The doc says there’s a 9-month wait to see a specialist at Children’s Hospital, and the only thing you can do now is ‘wait and see’.  Google shows pages of mixed advice about scoliosis and other spinal deformities – the anxiety of the unknown becomes overwhelming. You even see posts about a surgery which would fully fuse your teen’s spine.

Now, shift into the teen’s shoes: your mom is freaking out, you don’t get why. The doctor said something about a curve, so you search #scoliosis on instagram – people post about wearing huge plastic braces, having back pain, undergoing surgeries. You don’t know ANYone at school who has scoliosis. “What is going to happen to me? What are people at school going to think?”

Physiotherapist Andrea Mendoza started seeing scoliosis clients while working at Kids Physio Group. She travelled to the USA and became certified in the Schroth Method through the Barcelona Scoliosis Physical Therapy School, and after meeting many families with similar stories to the one above, she realized that a massive gap in care – physical and emotional care – existed for teens with scoliosis.  These families needed a space that was calm and welcoming, with longer appointments and specifically designed exercise equipment. They needed a place with incredibly empathetic staff who could answer the many questions that kept these teens, mothers, and fathers awake at night.  Physio Andrea decided to pivot her career towards addressing these gaps, and took the leap into business ownership: The ScoliClinic was launched in April 2016.

With the addition of other therapists on the team, The ScoliClinic recognized that many adults were diagnosed with scoliosis as teenagers, and also lacked the in-depth care throughout their adult lives. Soon after our launch, we expanded our offerings to provide treatment to people of all ages, in any stage of their journey. From being newly diagnosed, to having lived with scoliosis for many years, to being on the waitlist for surgery, to looking for post-operative rehabilitation, we welcome all those affected by scoliosis or Scheuermann’s Kyphosis.

Listening to clients’ needs led to The ScoliClinic’s evolution into becoming British Columbia’s premier Physiotherapy and Massage Therapy company fully dedicated to providing non-surgical treatment to people with scoliosis and spinal deformities, empowering families to take action rather than the traditional wait-and-see approach. We’ve created spaces where those with scoliosis could meet others on the same journey, to know they are not alone with this isolating condition.

Since The ScoliClinic’s inception, the team has established multiple locations in the lower mainland. The team of compassionate Physios, RMTs, and Client Coordinators work hard to provide the scoliosis-specific physical and emotional care that these clients need. We’ve even established a sister company on the Gold Coast of Australia, called The Scoliosis Collective, where we’re learning about cross-ocean expansions (hopefully more to come!).

With a continually-growing team at our Headquarters location in Vancouver, a satellite clinic in Surrey within Hodgson Orthopedic Group, and a North Shore clinic in North Vancouver shared with Synergy Physio + Pilates, The ScoliClinic strives to change the game of conservative scoliosis management in British Columbia and beyond by addressing the physical, emotional, and social factors that affect people with scoliosis.

We’re continually evolving to help people with scoliosis stand tall,
from the inside out.