Biomechanics in everyday activities!

  

Here are some pictures of my friends and family in everyday life! The first picture is of my friend when we got popsicles for her birthday, the second picture is of my friend Juju riding her adaptive bike outside, and the third picture is of my sister dancing.

    In the picture of my sister dancing, her spine is hyperextended with no rotation. Her pelvis is tilted anteriorly with no rotation. The right femur is flexed with no rotation, and her left femur is in extension and externally rotated. The lumbar curve in her spine is extremely exaggerated, her thoracic curve is flatter, and the cervical curve is exaggerated as she tilts her head back. Her scapulae are retracted as she stretches her chest to the ceiling. 

    When she is in this dancing position, she is extremely mobile but not very stable. I think it would be pretty difficult to get out of this position since her body parts are in all different extreme positions. The ball of her left foot is the only base of support she has in this position, so it is very small. Her upper extremities are free for movement and they are not being used for support, but they are probably used to help her balance. This posture will not support joint alignment, and this places additional force on multiple joints, especially joints in her left lower extremity. She cannot stay in this position for long at all. It is a very quick position she has herself in while she is dancing, and she will have to shift within a couple seconds.

    Our body can do some pretty amazing things, so it is important to take care of it, one way we can do this is by having proper posture. It is important to teach proper posture to a client who has poor body mechanics and faulty posture because it can prevent the client from injury and pain. By teaching this good posture, the client can also learn how to allow their muscles and organs to function optimally.

    If I had a client with poor posture, I would use/teach them proper posture through my interventions. For example, if I was teaching them proper posture why they are sitting at a desk for work, I would explain to them that they should position their pelvis with a slightly forward (anterior) tilt and no side (lateral) tilt or rotation, have their hip, knees, and ankles at 90-degree angles, their hips should be in a slightly higher position than their knees, they should maintain slight curvatures in all three curves of the spine, and they need to be looking forward with their head in the midline of their body. If I was teaching proper posture while my client was washing dishes, I would have them imagine a straight line going through their body vertically and explain that this line should pass through their ear lobe, top of the shoulder, the middle between abdomen and back, through the knees, and the ankles. To explain this better I would show them a picture of this proper position with a line going through it. For both sitting and standing posture I would demonstrate the proper postures and have them practice it with purposeful activities so they can get a feel for this correct posture positioning in their daily occupations.