Assessment of the effects of body posture correction in the sagittal plane in rural girls aged 7-12 with Io scoliosis.

Postural defects of children and youth constitute a serious social problem. It indicates the need for taking up efficient diagnostic and rehabilitation activities with regard to all children and youth in Poland with a particular focus on children from small towns and rural areas. The aim of the work was to assess the efficiency of corrective exercises done by girls with I° scoliosis and concurrent spinal defects in the sagittal plane. Additionally, an attempt was made to assess whether the level of anterior-posterior curvatures of the spine determines the quality of the body posture and whether there exists a relation between selected morphological features and the body posture of the examined girls. Two tests carried out 10 months apart included a group of 22 girls with spinal defects in the sagittal plane aged 7 to 12. Girls lived in the rural area of ¯ywiec commune. They participated in the authors' programme of corrective exercises conducted in the Specialist Centre for Postural Defects Correction Orto-Med in ¯ywiec. The levels of anteriorposterior curvatures of the spine were measured with the use of photogrammetric method. The types of body posture were defined on the basis of Wolanski's silhouette method modified by Zeyland-Malawka. The quantitative and percentage distribution of body posture types was calculated before and after the applied correction. In order to assess the dependencies between the level of anterior-posterior curvatures of the spine and the quality of the body posture, a non-parametric Chi² (÷²) test was used. To assess the relations of body posture with morphological features, Pearson's linear correlation was used. A beneficial influence of the applied corrective exercises on the shape of the anterior- posterior curvatures of the spine of the examined girls was noted. A body mass and height correlate with the body posture of the examined girls. A 10-month programme of corrective exercises improves the shape of anterior-posterior curvatures of the spine and the posture of girls aged 7-12 with I° scoliosis. The shape of the curvatures of the spine determines the quality of the body posture of the examined girls.