EVIDENCE FOR PHYSIOTHERAPY

There have been many studies that have looked at the effects of posture on pain. 

Cramer et al (2018) studied postural awareness and it’s relation to pain and concluded that  ‘ Self-reported postural awareness is associated with clinical symptoms in chronic pain patients and that ‘improvements in postural awareness are longitudinally associated with reduced pain in patients with spinal/shoulder pain’

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Smythe & Jivanjee (2021) concluded that it is difficult to say what a ‘good’ posture or ‘poor ‘ posture are, but they also reported that ‘Posture is almost certainly associated with pain and morbidity’. However, they suggested that it ‘is likely to be a much weaker association than previously thought’. They also report though that ‘In cases of clear pathology and/or specific context for the presenting patient, specific postural advice may be necessary to reduce tissue load, compression and sensitivity and to reduce ‘postural fear’

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Ting et al (2008) looked at the relationship between FHP and the severity and disability of patients with neck pain. They concluded that  ‘The craniovertebral angle in subjects with neck pain is significantly smaller than that in normal subjects’ and that  ‘Patients with small CV angle have a greater forward head posture and greater disability’

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A systematic review was carried out on the relationship between FHP and neck pain by Mahmood et al (2019) . They concluded that ‘head posture was significantly correlated with neck pain measurements in adults’.

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Another study by  Ha et al (2011)  investigated the effects of scapula repositioning on people with neck pain who had a posture with downward scapular rotation. They found that correcting the scapula position significantly improved cervical range of movement, pain and cervical joint position error.