Body Art: A Study on Aesthetics and Postural Instability in Patients With Piercings

Body art is increasing in popularity around the world and may now be considered a mainstream activity even in Western society. In fact, nowadays, this practice has become customary, independent of social and cultural origin. The key motivating factors for obtaining body piercings are individual expression, personal image management, and art. Research in psychology and sociology has shown that the body is not considered acceptable if it is not covered with signs of belonging; that is the reason why an increasing number of people adorn themselves with often permanent decorations. As the prevalence of body art has increased, adverse health risks associated with body piercing have also been documented. In this work, after taking into consideration how piercings stimulate certain nerve endings and having specifically evaluated the areas pertaining to the trigeminal nerve and those related to the hypoglossal nerve, we carried out a clinical study on 26 patients according to the Integrated Postural Analysis (API) method by the Italian Association for Postural Occlusal Re-education (AIROP) on how facial piercings can influence the individual's posture. These evaluations led us to consider how the systems involved, postural and proprioceptive, can respond more or less intensely to the stimuli induced by piercings and that these cause alterations; furthermore, the responses to such solicitation can vary based on the onset and integration of the stimulus itself and the compensatory capacity of the neurophysiological system. We can thus affirm the existence of a well-founded correlation between postural alterations and the presence or removal of piercings, which can lead to manifestations referable to postural dysfunction syndromes (PDS).