Does body posture of physiotherapy students change during bachelor studies?

Abstract

Introduction. Correct body posture is responsible for good spine health. It is recommended to sustain physiological curves of the spine to prevent musculoskeletal system’s overload. Nowadays young people body posture changes are becoming serious public health issue, because they may be causing degenerative conditions of the spine in the future. Young adults are spending more time sitting than in the past. Internet, transportation, food revolution and mobile revolution have affected our life in many ways. More than 50 percent of the medical students lack of physical activity because of study schedule and overtime shift work. There is a direct relationship between time spent in seated postures and the percentage of musculoskeletal disorders. Aim. To evaluate students’ body posture peculiarities and changes through studying years. Methods. The approval of LSMU Bioethics Center was received for this study. All participants signed a statement of informed consent after receiving information about the study. Thirty three physiotherapy students (8 men and 25 women) voluntary participated in the study. All participants were from the same study course which started at 2014. Exclusion criteria: the ones who did not continue studying and who did not participate in body posture evaluation in the first year of studies. Data of the first year students’ body posture were collected from the archives of Institute of Sports of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Body posture in the sagittal plane was evaluated using computerized posture assessment system Templo (version 8.2, ©Contemplas GmbH) – posture index was calculated. Participants were asked to stand in their regular posture and afterward in their ideal (according to them) posture. Statistical data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0. Data were compared using Wilcoxon‘s test. The level of statistical significance was set at p<0.05. [...].