Physical Rehabilitation of Adolescents with Postural Disorders in the Sagittal Plane and its Relation to Neurophysiology

Abstract

The adolescents aged between 15 and 17 with postural disorders in the sagittal plane, who live in mountainous regions in the Carpathians, achieve less than their peers with similar postural disorders, who live in plain regions. The research aims to develop the comprehensive programme for correcting postural disorders in the sagittal plane among pupils, who live in mountainous regions in the Carpathians, using physical rehabilitation, and establish the links between empirical data of the experiment and neurosciences to develop methods of complex psychophysical and neurophysiological diagnostic and rehabilitation of adolescents with such disorders in further research. The research is based on a detailed observation of 319 adolescents aged between 15 and 17 from mountainous regions of the Ukrainian Carpathians and 94 pupils from plain regions with postural disorders in the sagittal plane. The research methods are the following: an analysis of the scientific and specialized literature; surveys and questionnaires; pedagogical tests; methods for determining the indicators of physical development, functional readiness and functions of the spine; methods of mathematical statistics, namely, the Ruffier-Dickson test, Otto test, Schober test, Thomayer test, Fleischmann test, Sedin test and spinal index, inclinometer measurements. The pupils who suffer from the stoop and round spine have shown a decrease in average values in the angles of lordosis and kyphosis curves; pupils who suffer from flat back – an increase in the angles of the sacral bone, lordosis and kyphosis curves; pupils who suffer from the round and concave back – a decrease in the angles of the sacral bone, lordosis and kyphosis curves. The implementation of the author’s programme for physical rehabilitation has made it possible to achieve a statistically significant improvement in most of the analyzed indicators. Finally, the article extrapolates the results of the experiment to their neurophysiological and neuromedical application in terms of enhancing anamnesis and taking into account post-correction data in subsequent medical treatment.