Spinal postural alignment variance according to sex and age in 7- and 8-year-old children.
OBJECTIVE
Children's postural alignment undergoes many adjustments due to the changes in body proportions during the stages of growth. The objective of this study was to quantitatively characterize and analyze spinal postural standards in 7- and 8-year-old children to verify which of the differences found were correlated to age and sex.


METHODS
Two hundred thirty public school students (Amparo, São Paulo, Brazil) aged 7 to 8 years were divided into groups according to postural alignment, which were further subdivided by sex and age, for comparison. Digital photos of upright subjects were analyzed to evaluate posture. Lumbar and thoracic curvature, pelvic inclination, head posture, and lateral spine deviation were measured using CorelDraw (Ottawa, Canada) software guidelines and bone landmarks. Descriptive statistics and analysis of variance data analysis were utilized to verify differences among the groups. This was a cross-sectional, descriptive study.


RESULTS
Mean values for the variables analyzed were calculated. For lumbar lordosis, 7-year-old boys showed 38.49 degrees +/- 15.32 degrees in comparison to all other groups (42.29 degrees +/- 7.13 degrees ). For thoracic kyphosis, the 7-year-old children presented 28.07 degrees +/- 7.73 degrees , and the 8-year-olds 30.32 degrees +/- 7.73 degrees . Pelvic inclination presented a mean value of 15.82 degrees +/- 5.46 degrees and single lateral spine deviation mean value of 3.48 degrees +/- 2.12 degrees .


CONCLUSIONS
For the sample studied, differences based on sex and age were found for some of the body segments analyzed. The values found in this study may contribute to improved physiotherapeutic treatment when associated with other aspects of the clinical assessment and symptomatology.
Penha
Patrícia Jundi
PJ
Rehabilitation Sciences in the School of Medicine, Department of Physical Therapy, Speech and Occupational Therapy - University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Baldini
Marina
M
João
Sílvia Maria Amado
SM
D000367:Age Factors; D000886:Anthropometry / Q000379:methods*; D001827:Body Height; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight; D001938:Brazil; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010781:Photography; D010808:Physical Examination / Q000379:methods; D011187:Posture / Q000502:physiology*; D011336:Probability; D012572:School Health Services; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012737:Sex Factors; D013121:Spinal Curvatures / Q000175:diagnosis*; D013131:Spine / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D013334:Students / Q000706:statistics & numerical data