Jane Johnson - Postural Assessment

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Johnson, Jane, 1965-

Postural assessment / Jane Johnson.

p. ; cm. -- (Hands-on guides for therapists)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4504-0096-1 (soft cover)

ISBN-10: 1-4504-0096-5 (soft cover)

1. Posture--Physiological aspects. 2. Mind and body. I. Title. II. Series: Hands-on guides for therapists.

[DNLM: 1. Posture--physiology. 2. Musculoskeletal Diseases--diagnosis. 3. Musculoskeletal Diseases--prevention & control. 4. Musculoskeletal Manipulations. 5. Postural Balance. WE 103]

RA781.5J64 2012

613.78--dc23

2011013626

ISBN-10: 1-4504-0096-5 (print)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4504-0096-1 (print)

Copyright 2012 by Jane Johnson

This book is copyrighted under the Berne Convention. All rights are reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher.

Notice: Permission to reproduce the following material is granted to instructors and agencies who have purchased Postural Assessment: pp. 142-153. The reproduction of other parts of this book is expressly forbidden by the above copyright notice. Persons or agencies who have not purchased Postural Assessment may not reproduce any material.

Acquisitions Editors: Loarn D. Robertson, PhD, and Karalynn Thomson; Developmental Editor: Amanda S. Ewing; Assistant Editors: Kali Cox and Brendan Shea; Copyeditor: Patsy Fortney; Permissions Manager: Dalene Reeder; Graphic Designer: Nancy Rasmus; Graphic Artist: Dawn Sills; Cover Designer: Keith Blomberg; Photograph (cover): Courtesy of Emma Kelly Photography; Photographs (interior): Courtesy of Emma Kelly Photography; Photo Asset Manager: Laura Fitch; Visual Production Assistant: Joyce Brumfield; Photo Production Manager: Jason Allen; Art Manager: Kelly Hendren; Associate Art Manager: Alan L. Wilborn; Illustrations: Human Kinetics; Printer: United Graphics

Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper in this book is certified under a sustainable forestry program.

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I dedicate this book to two groups of people. First, to the many hundreds of bodyworkers who have attended my postural assessment workshops. Thank you for standing in your underwear so that we may all learn more about posture and the similarities and differences among our bodies. Thank you also for your questions, which have kept me on my toes and interested in this subject for many years. Second, I dedicate this book to all of you who are new to postural assessment and for whom I have two pieces of advice: You have to start somewhere, and you dont have to agree.

M assage may be one of the oldest therapies still used today. At present more therapists than ever before are practicing an ever-expanding range of massage techniques. Many of these techniques are taught through massage schools and within degree courses. Our need now is to provide the best clinical and educational resources that will enable massage therapists to learn the required techniques for delivering massage therapy to clients. Human Kinetics has developed the Hands-On Guides for Therapists series with this in mind.

The Hands-On Guides for Therapists series provides specific tools of assessment and treatment that fall well within the realm of massage therapists but may also be useful for other bodyworkers, such as osteopaths and fitness instructors. Each book in the series is a step-by-step guide to delivering the techniques to clients. Each book features a full-colour interior packed with photos illustrating every technique. Tips provide handy advice to help you adjust your technique, and the Client Talk boxes contain examples of how the techniques can be used with clients who have particular problems. Throughout each book are questions that enable you to test your knowledge and skill, which will be particularly helpful if you are attempting to pass a qualification exam. Weve even provided the answers too!

You might be using a book from the Hands-On Guides for Therapists series to obtain the required skills to help you pass a course or to brush up on skills you learned in the past. You might be a course tutor looking for ways to make massage therapy come alive with your students. This series provides easy-to-follow steps that will make the transition from theory to practice seem effortless. The Hands-On Guides for Therapists series is an essential resource for all those who are serious about massage therapy.

W hether you are a student or practitioner of physical therapy, osteopathy, chiropractic, sports massage, sports therapy or almost any form of bodywork, including fitness instruction, yoga and Pilates, you will no doubt appreciate the value in carrying out postural assessments as part of your overall assessment procedure. The assessment of posture helps you to determine whether there is any muscular or fascial imbalance and whether this imbalance might be contributing to a clients pain or dysfunction.

Being able to assess posture for imbalance is a skill required by most therapists, yet until now, there have been few resources to support practitioners in this task. Postural Assessment is intended as a comprehensive, user-friendly guide to this topic, with tips that will enable you to perform your observations in a confident and competent manner. This book focuses on what posture reveals about the relationships among various body parts so that you may be better informed about whether such relationships are causing or contributing to pain or discomfort or whether these relationships might affect the stability of joints by increasing or decreasing joint range. The emphasis is on the assessment of static posture in standing and seated positions. Written for complete beginners in the use of postural assessment as an examination tool, this book will generate ideas about what to look for, how to identify common postural forms and how to make sense of your observations.

Postural Assessment is organised into two parts. Part I explains how to get started and answers questions such as these: Why perform postural assessment? Who should have postural assessment? Where and when should postural assessment take place? What are the benefits of doing postural assessment? In this introduction you will learn about factors affecting posture and the ideal posture as well as how to provide the correct environment for postural assessment, what equipment you will need, how long it should take and how and why to document your findings. Line drawings illustrate the bony landmarks you will be using as you work through later chapters.