I understand that research shows slouching does not correlate with pain. However, you are really missing out if you let that flawed logic prevent you from some of the most easy and important education that you can give a patient.
If you saw a morbidly obese patient who had no chest pain, but had high blood pressure, does it make sense not to make some changes? Just because the perception of threat precluded the actual risks to the patient's well being? A PT online once told me that he was slouching as we were chatting and he had no pain... sure... To me, that's like the situation above, it does not mean changes should not be made. It's such an easy and effective educational treatment, if it makes a big difference, why would you not address it? I'm not addressing it if you come in for an ankle sprain, but any shoulder, hip, spinal, HA, TMJ patients are definitely getting some postural education.
Here are 5 Reasons Why You Should Be Looking at Posture
1) It's Easy
- a patient has HA, radiating UE pain, radiating LE pain, lumbar pain, painful shoulder arc... etc
- you place them in an optimal sitting position and ask for any changes in their Sx
- if their pain improves, peripheral complaints centralize, and/or shoulder motion improves, have them slouch again
- if Sx return and/or shoulder ROM quantity/quality worsens, repeat the corrected posture again
- you've just educated them on cause and effect
- this also works great for shoulder MMT, UE or LE DTRs as a pre and post correction tests
- it is that easy, starting with this during the subjective or immediately afterward brings a sense of importance as opposed to mentioning it during the last 5 minutes of an evaluation
2) Head position affects mandible position
- Dr. Rocabado proved quite a while ago that cervical protraction caused mandible retraction
- most TMJ articular discs sublux antero-laterally which can be a result of the mandible being pulled into retraction and inferiorly by the inframandibular tissues and digastrics
- have a TMJ or HA patient click their teeth together in their normal sitting posture (or corrected) then have them fully flex/protract and extend/retract, they may perceive a slight difference in occulsion which shows head and neck position affect mandible position
3) It affects breathing patterns
- breathing pattern dysfunction has been correlated with chronic HA, cervical pain, and lumbar pain
- if you can perform correct diaphragmatic breathing yourself, try it in hooklying or supine and vary your pelvic position from different degrees of anterior and posterior pelvic tilt
- this changes the length tension and position of the diaphragm
- this will in turn either make it easier or more difficult to breath correctly
- this is also an easy concept to demonstrate to patients who have good body awareness
4) It locks in the improvements for spinal, shoulder, and hip derangements/rapid responders
- when a patient leaves, feels better, and comes back and says it didn't last AND they were compliant with the HEP, AND they were performing them at the instructed mode, often they were not maintaining correct posture in sitting/standing/lying
- part of this is also frequent movement to avoid prolonged positions - not just static holds
5) It can (and should) be practiced anywhere
- it is a habit like anything else, it requires frequent practice and awareness for true change
- you don't need equipment
- it promotes efficient length tension relationships preps for movement
- it's not just for sitting, there are optimal positions for patients with difficulty sitting, standing, lying
- other than lying, even optimal posture should not be held statically for very long, frequent movement is key!
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