POSTURAL GEOMETRY EVALUATION OF CONTROL SUBJECTS AND SCOLIOTIC PATIENTS USING STEREOVIDEOGRAPHY

Idiopathic scoliosis principally characterised by a deformation of the vertebral column can also be associated to postural abnormalities. Th e validity and reliability of current quantitative postural evaluation s has not been thoroughly documented? frequently limited by a two dime nsional view of the patient, and do not include the whole posture of t he patient. The purpose of this study is to ii quantify within and bet ween-session reliability of a stereovideographic Postural Geometry (PG ) evaluation and 2) to investigate the sensitivity of this technique f or the postural evaluation of scoliosis patients. The PG of 14 control subjects and 9 untreated scoliosis patients were evaluated with 5 rep ent trials, on two occasions. Postural geometry parameters that descri be the position and orientation of the pelvis, trunk, scapular girdle and head were calculated based on the 3-dimensional co-ordinates of an atomical landmarks, The mean between and within-session variability ac ross all parameters were 12.5 mm, 2.8 degrees and 5.4 mm and 1.4 degre es respectively. The patient group was heterogeneous with some noted p athological characteristics. This global stereovideographic postural g eometry evaluation appears to demonstrate sufficient reliability and s ensitivity to follow-up on thr posture of scoliosis patients.