Anatomical research through a computer science approach : a better insight into cervical range of motion analysis

The present study focuses on active cervical movements in healthy women of different ages. The aim of the study is to perform a three-dimensional qualitative and quantitative analysis of active head-cervical RoM and of the overall movement execution in healthy women to assess the relationship with age. Age-related variations in active cervical RoM are still partially unknown: some investigations demonstrated that age has no effect whatsoever on the primary movements40 while other studies found an inverse proportionality between age and cervical RoM6,13,17. A few investigations17,47 tried to compare the entirety of the movement, not limiting themselves to the RoM but the results are varied and not conclusive. Three groups of women were compared: 22 aged 15 to 18 years (adolescents), 25 aged 20 to 30 years (young adults) and 16 aged 35 to 45 years (mid-aged women). Active flexion and extension, lateral bending and axial rotation were recorded via an optoelectronic system19,48. After the mathematical exclusion of thoracic movements, cervical RoM was referred to head local reference system and calculated using the tilt/twist method. Data were compared using ANOVA. Subsequently all the data where reconstructed through an high order polynomial interpolation, the result curves averaged per age group and movement type and compared through correlation analyses. Flexion and extension were larger in the adolescents (137°) than in the young adults (128°) and mid-aged women (127°). Lateral bending had similar ranges in the three groups: 103° for adolescents, 101° for young adults and 100° for mid-aged women. Axial rotation had similar ranges in the adolescents and in the mid-aged women (143°) and a slightly larger range in the young adults (151°). Primary movements were always associated with out-of-plane components and correlation was found between primary and coupled movements.