What is it about?
This study aimed to examine the effect of carrying backpacks on neck posture and ground reaction forces (GRFs) and to investigate the relationship between neck angles and GRFs during backpack carriage in schoolchildren. Carrying a backpack weighing 15% of the child’s body weight changes the head posture and increases the normalized value of the anterior-posterior shear force. During backpack carriage, decreasing the SSP is associated with increasing the load acceptance, thrusting and posterior propulsive forces. Increasing the shearing force may lead to development of postural abnormities. Consequently, the ideal backpack weight should be considered by parents and teachers.
Featured Image
Photo by Thom Holmes on Unsplash
Why is it important?
To achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the forces acting on the musculoskeletal system, combining the GRFs and neck posture appears to be relevant. However, the relationship between the neck angles and GRFs during backpack carriage has received almost no attention in the academic literature related to children.
Perspectives
Carrying a backpack weighing 15% of the child’s BW changes the head posture and increases the normalized value of anterior-posterior shear force compared to the unloaded condition. Moreover, decreasing the SSP is associated with increasing the load acceptance, thrusting and posterior propulsive forces. So, it is recommended to give advice to parents about the ideal weight of a backpack and carrying style to reduce the risk of posture and balance disturbance.
Prof. Dr. Amr Almaz Abdel-aziem
Faculty of Physical Therapy, Cairo University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The relationship between neck angles and ground reaction forces in schoolchildren during backpack carriage, Biomedical Human Kinetics, January 2020, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.2478/bhk-2020-0001.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
