Lordosis, Regions and School Children: A Study Seeking the Association of Region and Gender with the Status of Lordosis in Madhya Pradesh

The spine has got three natural curves namely cervical, thoracic and lumbar depending on the region of curve. There are different kinds of spinal deformities prevalent among the school children. Lordosis is one of the most prevalent deformities. Lordosis can be defined by an excessive inward curvature in the lumbar region of spine. Although it primary affects the lumbar spine, it does occur in the neck too. Patients with excessive lumbar lordosis may appear swayback, the buttocks more prominent, and in general their posture appears exaggerated. Lordosis affects people of all ages but children are more vulnerable to this problem. It affects the lower back, it can cause back pain making movement difficult and painful. Lumbar lordosis has long been studied, and its curvature is associated with various factors, such as thoracic curvature, age, gender, pelvic bend, among others. Studies have been conducted intending to measure lumbar and spinal segments curvatures. Spondylolisthesis, osteoporosis, and even obesity may lead to abnormal lordosis.1 Another common cause of excess lordosis in the low back is excessive sitting, which shortens the muscles in the front of the hips, pulling them forward and creating more curve in

1 Retrieved on March 27, from https://www.spineuniverse.com/anatomy/normal-curves-your-spine

swayback. The children who sit a lot or carrying heavy backpacks followed by wrong lifestyle, poor posture, and weak spine can easily be affected by lordosis. By keeping its vulnerability among children the present study was constituted with the following purpose.

• To find out the prevalence of lordosis in Madhya Pradesh • To study the association of gender with the status of lordosis prevalent among the school children of Madhya Pradesh. • To study the association of different regions of Madhya Pradesh with the status of lordosis.

Sample: the data was collected from four different districts of Madhya Pradesh. The total sample size was 500 school children (125 from each district) studying from different kinds of schools. All the children were ranging into the age group of 10-15 years. Criterion measures. Lordosis was measured by measuring the degree of lumbar curvature of the spine. Anyone who had equal to or more than 45 degree of curvature was kept into the category of lordotic category.

Research Instruments: A flexible ruler (flexicurve) was used to measure the degree of kyphosis. Administration of Test: Each student was asked to come one by one in private ward (with the permission of principal of the concerned school) in the presence of physical education teacher, and remove their shirts off so that the spinous processes of L1 and L5 can be marked with a skin marker. The child was asked to inhale and exhale without forcing out the breath. The flexicurve was carefully conformed to the lumbar spine. The span of the spinal curve was noted down on the graph paper by using the flexicurve ruler. Converting Raw Scores into Degrees: The lordotic angle was calculated with the trigonometric calculation using the following formula:

factorial Anova. The level of significance was set at .05

Table 1 shows the mean and standard deviation of degree of lordosis irrespective of the gender and being into the category of lordotic. Table also gives the percentage of lordosis prevalent among the school children of different selected regions/districts of Madhya Pradesh.

It is clearly visible from the above table that approx. 43 percent of school children in Madhya Pradesh are suffering from lordosis deformity. The table further reveals that Shivpuri region has the highest percentage (53.6) of lordosis followed by Morar, Bhopal and Bhind. Below given figure presents the graphical explanations of the above table. Fig1: Percentage of Lordosis Prevalent among the school children of different regions of Madhya Pradesh.

The above table is showing the testing of null hypothesis (Ho) i.e. there is no association between gender and the status of lordosis among the school children of Madhya Pradesh against the research hypothesis that there is a significant association between gender and the status of lordosis among the school children of Madhya Pradesh. Results revealed a significant association, as the calculated chi square ( ) = 5.029 is higher than the tabulated value of chi square (0.05 (1) = 3.84). Thereby, it can be concluded that there is a significant association of gender with the prevalence of lordosis in different regions of Madhya Pradesh.

The above table is showing the testing of null hypothesis (Ho) i.e. there is no association between region and the status of lordosis among the school children of Madhya Pradesh against the research hypothesis that there is a significant association between region and the status of lordosis among the school children of Madhya Pradesh. Results revealed a very marginal association, as the calculated chi square ( ) = 7.84 is higher than the tabulated value of chi square (0.05 (3) = 7.82). Hence, it can be said that there is marginally a significant association between the status of lordosis and different regions of Madhya Pradesh.

The data was analyzed in order to the prevalence of lordosis among the children of Madhya Pradesh. results of the study revealed approx. 43 percent of school children in Madhya Pradesh are suffering from lordosis deformity. The table further reveals that Shivpuri region has the highest percentage of lordosis followed by Morar, Bhopal and Bhind. The data was again scanned it was found that there is a significant very marginal association between the status of lordosis and different regions and hence it can lordosis is prevalent in all the regions more or less equally. The results of the presents study goes along with the findings of the other research scholar who conducted studies regarding the prevalence of lordosis in different parts of the world. Based on the above findings it can be concluded that lordosis is quite a popular spinal deformity among the children, it‘s only the percentage varies from regions to region and one gender to another. It can further be concluded and suggested that there is a need of awareness program and remedial measures regarding lordosis in different regions of Madhya Pradesh.

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Post-Doctoral Research Scholar, SOSPESS, Jiwaji University