FAQ

Trunk rotation, expressed as the Angle of Trunk Rotation in degrees. Your phone’s built-in motion sensors do the work: rested flat across the back while your child is bent forward, the phone registers how far one side of the trunk sits above the other.

Rotated vertebrae push the ribs and muscles out on one side, and that is what produces the tilt. The number is a screening figure. It is not a diagnosis and it is not what an X-ray measures.

No. There is no national school screening programme. KidsHealth New Zealand describes detection as a parent noticing something and taking the child to a health professional.

That makes the parent the first step in the pathway rather than a backstop to it. Arrangements can change, so confirm the current position with your health provider.

Learn the forward bend test and take a reading a few times a year through the growth spurt. It takes about a minute.

The point is not to diagnose anything. It is to have a dated number, so that if something is changing you notice it while there are still options, rather than a year later.

Something a clinician can use. Telling a GP that a reading has gone from 4° in February to 8° in August is a different conversation from saying your child’s back looks worse than it did.

With no screening programme running, your record may be the only history of that child’s spine anyone has.

No. The Cobb angle is measured on a radiograph and can only come from an X-ray. The app measures rotation at the surface of the back.

The two are related but not interchangeable, and an ATR reading cannot be converted into a Cobb angle. See ATR compared with the Cobb angle.

It cannot, and no surface measurement can. What a raised number tells you is that one side of the trunk sits higher than the other by an amount worth someone examining.

Whether that asymmetry is scoliosis, and how significant it is, is a question for a clinician with the benefit of an examination and, if needed, imaging.

Feet together, knees locked straight, arms hanging loose with the palms together. Ask your child to fold forward from the hips until the upper back is about level with the floor, and view the back from behind at that height rather than from above.

Rest the phone across the back at right angles to the spine and work downwards, noting the biggest number you see. Our forward bend test guide has photographs and the common errors.

Squarely across the back, its long edge at right angles to the spine and its centre over the spine itself. Take one reading high on the back, then ask your child to fold a little further and take a second low down.

Keep the largest of the two. If the phone lands in a different spot each session you are measuring a different part of the back each time, which is why an unchanged spine can look like a worsening one.

Small readings are common and a perfectly symmetrical back is unusual. Under 5° is generally treated as within normal variation.

Stability over time matters as much as any single figure. See what scoliometer readings mean.

Screening research reports that an ATR near 5° corresponds on average to a Cobb angle near 11°, and an ATR near 7° to a Cobb angle near 20°. These are group averages and an individual can sit well above or below them.

A reading cannot be converted into a Cobb angle. What a 5, 7 or 10 degree reading means covers the thresholds.

Book if the reading is 5° or more, if it has risen by around 5° over a few months, if one shoulder blade or hip sits visibly higher, or if there is back pain, numbness or a change in how your child walks.

The GP appointment is not optional in New Zealand. A child must be assessed by a GP or a specialist before a referral to the spine service can be made.

The Starship Spine Service is New Zealand’s national referral centre for children, based at Starship Children’s Hospital, with outreach clinics at Waikato Hospital. Scoliosis is the most common condition it sees.

A GP or specialist assessment must come first. If you live outside Auckland, the referral routes through your local hospital rather than going directly to Starship.

It happens, and it is not the end of the process. Referrals are sometimes returned to the GP, and there are waiting times.

If that occurs, ask the GP what reading or what rate of change would support a further referral, keep measuring, and go back with a documented trend rather than the same information twice.

Your dated readings — date, which part of the back, the number, and who took the measurement.

A GP seeing your child once cannot tell whether a curve is changing. A record over several months answers a question the appointment on its own cannot, and it is exactly the kind of evidence that supports a referral.

Quarterly is about right while a child is growing quickly and has no diagnosed curve. Where a curve is already under specialist care, their schedule replaces this one.

There is no advantage in measuring every week. Curves move over months, so weekly figures show you the wobble in your own hand rather than anything happening to the spine.

It helps a great deal. The app is consistent; the person holding it is the variable. Bend depth, where the phone lands and how hard it is pressed all shift the number.

Pick one person to do it, in the same spot at home, and the series you build will mean something. Swap between parents and you will spend your time wondering whether the change is real.

It can. The sensors report the phone’s tilt, so a case with a raised camera ring or a lip along one edge props the phone at an angle and adds that angle to every reading you take.

Slip the case off, or at least use the same case every time. Do not press down hard either: squashing the soft tissue on one side flattens the difference and gives you a reading lower than the truth.

Direction of travel counts for more than any one figure. Roughly 5° of increase between sessions is worth a professional opinion even when the number itself still sounds small.

Before acting on it, repeat the measurement carefully and check nothing about your method changed, because technique alone can shift a reading several degrees. If the rise survives a careful repeat, book the appointment. Curves can progress quietly, without pain and without looking obviously different.

Curves progress fastest during the adolescent growth spurt, most often in girls, and a family history raises the likelihood.

Boys develop scoliosis too. With no programme running, a boy with a visible rib hump is as worth measuring as a girl the same age.

Yes, and plenty do. The usual reasons are keeping an eye on a curve diagnosed years ago, or putting a number to an asymmetry noticed alongside back pain.

Expect a slower picture than in a growing child. Adult curves shift gradually, so space the measurements further apart. An asymmetry that is new, or moving quickly, needs a doctor rather than a home record.

Not by us. The app’s Data safety declaration on Google Play states that it collects no user data and shares none with any third party, and the readings you take remain on your handset.

One practical consequence: if you lose the phone, we cannot recover the history for you. Keep a written note alongside it — the date, the part of the back, the figure and who measured — and take that to appointments.

Refunds sit with whichever store took the payment. In-app subscriptions are billed by Apple or Google, and only they can reverse a charge; we have no access to their billing systems.

Approach Apple or Google support using the account the purchase was made on, and they will handle it from there.

Yes, at no further cost. Sign in with the same Apple ID or Google account that made the original purchase and the app and your entitlement come back.