Sagittal evaluation of usual standing and sitting spinal posture

Postural rehabilitation often plays an important role in the management of non-specific low back pain. While cervical and lumbar correlations have been demonstrated previously, the different role of the pelvis and the thoracic spine for postural control in sitting and standing remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate postural correlations between all spinal regions in standing and sitting. Based on digital photographs eight postural angles were analyzed in 99 young healthy persons. Pearson correlations between different postural angles were calculated. In sitting pelvic tilt demonstrated mostly medium correlations with five out of seven other postural angles, compared to three in standing. In standing trunk angle showed five out of seven mostly medium correlations with other regions compared to four out of seven in usual sitting. The low and different correlations suggest a large between-subject variability in sagittal spinal posture, without the existence of any optimal sagittal posture.