Marco Romoli
University of Florence, Italy
Title: Posturology: A new discipline involving art, well-being, physiology, pain management and prevention of musculoskeletal disorders
Biography
Biography: Marco Romoli
Abstract
The thesaurus of the National Library of Medicine does not report the term “posturology” as a Medical Subject Heading (MeSH), but only “postural balance” and “posture”. Also in the subheadings of PubMed, we may find only generic terms such as posture control, head and foot posture, posture and low back or neck pain, etc. The sense of this is that “posturology” has not been yet recognized as an independent and important discipline involving several aspects such as well-being, ergonomics and sports performance. Exhaustive observations on humans have been performed since a long time by painters and sculptors looking and trying to reproduce in their artworks “ideal models” of posture. In the medical field however, posturology was introduced at first by French doctors only 30 years ago, but this topic is still unknown and likely underreported by English speaking authors probably for linguistic reasons. Another aspect which characterizes the delay in the appreciation of posturology as a valuable diagnostic is therapeutic method. It is still low evidenced based demonstration of the possible disturbing effects by anomalously functioning “receptors” such as the eye, the dental occlusion, the sole of the foot and the skin etc. For example, the weakness of one ocular muscle, the missing of one tooth, the asymmetry of plantar support or a long-standing active scar may cause postural misalignments associated with pain syndromes and functional limitation of the musculoskeletal system of uncertain diagnosis. The systematic and correct differential diagnosis of any postural disorder may be of interest in the pain management and prevention of musculoskeletal disorders.
