Recognizing Posture
How much do we know about the correct posture? Postural awareness is framed as a skill to be learned in Najada and Rigerta’s study, “Body Posture Awareness and Its Application in the Seated Position”. It is defined as the ability to be aware of the position of your body. The study was approached with the use of a questionnaire. Through the study’s aim to determine the relationship between cognitive level and practical action in postural attitudes, it was found that students’ body posture knowledge was strong for standing (92%), carrying heavy objects (73%), but not for sleeping at only 44% knowing the correct posture for this activity. Interestingly, 91% of the participants chose the correct posture for sitting, but only 52% reported sitting in a proper way in daily life. This shows that the limitation in posture correction is perhaps not increasing the cognitive knowledge surrounding postural awareness, but incentivizing the practical application. (Lucy)
Causes of Poor Posture
In day-to-day life, it becomes less simple to practice correct posture, as many factors begin to add on cognitive weight. Think of an activity you tend to do everyday where you’re sitting and not usually correcting your posture—was it going on your phone? As handheld mobile device (HHMD) usage becomes increasingly prevalent, so does text neck, in which prolonged cervical flexion excessively strains the mechanics of the cervical spine. Fiebert et al.’s “Text neck: An adverse postural phenomenon” finds that this posture significantly increases load on cervical vertebrae and surrounding musculature, especially as the neck flexion angle increases. Small differences between both genders were observed, but more problematic is the cumulative nature of this stance, as sustained or repetitive HHMD use exacerbates ligamentous creep, muscular fatigue, and reductions in the spine’s natural cervical lordosis over time. The paper points out that prolonged exposure during developmental years may contribute to long-term postural adaptations and increased risk of chronic neck dysfunction later in life, requiring medical or therapeutic intervention. (Ginelle)
Interventions
No, this doesn’t mean we are doomed to be physically unable to escape the effects of bad posture. In fact, researchers have looked into methods to ease these effects, whether it’s by relieving pain, mitigating the behavior altogether, or finding ways to increase postural awareness and detecting poor posture, across different age and behavioral categories.
Behavioral Interventions
Penning et al.’s “Acute effects of reducing sitting time in adolescents: a randomized cross-over study” targets prolonged sitting during the school day. In their experiment, the researchers simulate a typical school day and divide the participating students into a control and a reduced-sitting condition, where the latter was achieved by breaking up prolonged sitting bouts of over 20 minutes and reducing overall sitting time by 50%. The results demonstrate that even short-term reductions in sitting time can produce meaningful cardiometabolic improvements, including one of the key markers used to measure cardiovascular risk. Additionally, cognitive performance was not impaired by the reduced sitting, meaning that implementing movement- and sitting-related interventions may not sacrifice cognitive functioning. This study was done among adolescents only, emphasizing a need of mitigating maladaptive habits early on, as well the importance of considering age-specific strategies when addressing postural health. (Ginelle)
Non-specific neck pain has been a long-withstanding issue among office workers due to the sedentary nature of their work. In Shakerkavar et al.’s systemic review of “The Influence of Active Breaks on Neck Pain Relief in Office Settings,” the researchers synthesized findings across 11 articles examining the effectiveness of incorporating exercise breaks into work sessions. The review found that interventions ranging from stretching, yoga, corrective exercises, to brief workout sessions have proven effective to enhancing muscle health, alleviating pain, and increasing worker productivity. The effects were enhanced further when these routines were supervised and combined with ergonomic modifications. In particular, strength-training exercises exhibited the strongest effect. The review suggests that the consequences following bad posture could be countered by active breaks involving mild exercise. It suggests that cultivating a habit of taking productive breaks can be an effective approach to enhancing good posture and alleviating the negative health outcomes resulting from bad posture. (Nikki)
Feedback-based Interventions
Real-time reminders from a device tracking your body position can serve as a way to improve posture, but as shown in Jason Baer’s study “Posture biofeedback increases cognitive load” this can also come with a cost. In this paper, they analyzed subjects playing a simple video game, noting their score and their posture in two scenarios: with auditory feedback given during poor posture and with no feedback. The results displayed that although posture did improve with feedback, the video game score lowered. This shows that maintaining posture does require active attention and can take away from focus on another task. In fact, the subjects with the worst posture suffered the most significantly in their performance. Given this, the study took a look at mindfulness and whether it could improve posture without the same cognitive cost. There was a correlation found between better posture without any feedback and a high mindfulness score on the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale. This suggests mindfulness may help someone intrinsically improve their posture without the need for external reminders that impose a cognitive load. (Heather)
Ergonomic Interventions
Maintaining good posture can also be a strain because it requires muscle effort to hold the correct position. In Kieran O’Sullivan’s study “Can we reduce the effort of maintaining a neutral sitting posture? A pilot study” they researched whether a well-designed chair can reduce the effort needed. While measuring the activity of six different trunk muscles using an EMG, they had healthy subjects attempt to maintain a neutral sitting posture in two different chairs: a standard backless office chair and a dynamic, forward-inclined chair. The results indicated that when sitting in the forward-inclined chair, participants needed less muscle activation to maintain the same posture. This suggests that strong chair design, specifically focused on seat-incline to improve a person’s hip angle, can make maintaining good posture a lower effort and therefore easier task. (Heather)
In “Postural Variability: An Effective Way to Reduce Musculoskeletal Discomfort in Office Work”, Davis et al examined how different workstation setups influenced worker productivity, postural adjustments, and discomfort. The study compared worker performance and posture at conventional workstations, posture-altering workstation interventions involving sit-stand tables, conventional workstation with reminder software, and sit-stand workstations with reminder software over a 2-week period using a combination of video surveillance and self-report surveys. The study found that reminder software greatly (onscreen break reminders introduced at 30-minute intervals) significantly reduced shoulder and back pain regardless of workstation type. In addition, reminder software and posture-altering workstations prompted greater posture variability (switching from a sitting to standing state or leaving the workstation), which also decreased discomfort without sacrificing productivity. This study suggests that consistent reminders are crucial in prompting users to adjust their posture and take breaks, especially in a focused work setting. More importantly, these interventions have no negative effect on their productivity, as may be assumed. Dynamic workstations can adopt this change in behavior in order to make the transition easier for workers. (Nikki)
Computer Vision-Based Assessment
Posture correction has also been a focus of research in academic and computer vision settings. Rayele Moreira’s study, “A computer vision-based mobile tool for assessing human posture: A validation study” evaluates the existing computer vision applications that tackle poor posture. This study evaluated different human pose estimation (HPE) models that utilize deep learning techniques to accurately describe a person’s upper limbs range of motion. The study explores evaluation using the NLMeasurer mobile application, which incorporates these pose estimation models into an easy measuring tool captured through a phone camera. HPE models demonstrated higher accuracy in detecting shoulder flexion and abduction movements, both key motions that could indicate a hunch or poor posture. However, there were limitations such as environmental lighting, distorted images, or complicated poses, that ultimately resulted in poor accuracy when comparing the measurements of NLMeasurer and a live Physiotherapist. This suggests computer vision applications could be an exciting avenue to explore for a posture correction solution, but may not be the most accurate and effective. (Lucy)
