Avaliação postural de escolares: um estudo longitudinal

Abstract

Introduction: Childhood and adolescence are important periods of growth in which the position is altered to support the new body proportions. Objective: To characterize the longitudinal profile of body posture in children and adolescents. Method: Children and adolescents of a Philanthropic Institution, aged between 6 and 12 years, were assessed in relation to their weight, height and body posture, during the years 2012 to 2015.The postural evaluation was performed by means of photogrammetry according to the Software Protocol (SAPo v 0.68). The normality of the variables was assessed by the test Shapiro Wilks. The Friedmann test was used to compare variables in the three evaluations. Results: Only 34 of the 100 students made three assessments, characterizing the study sample. Subjects were predominantly eutrophic during the three evaluations. In the evaluation of body posture it was observed significant decreasing differences for the variable frontal angle of the lower limb, Q angle, asymmetry in the frontal plane, horizontal alignment of the pelvis and angle leg/hindfoot and just the angle of the ankle was crescent. Conclusion: The children and adolescents’ posture underwent changes with their growth. It was difficult to justify the findings in the evaluation of body posture due to the lack of reference values of some points that were analyzed and also because of the scarcity of studies that follow longitudinally changes of posture.