Current Pedorthics | January-February | Vol. 54, Issue 1 | Page 27

The Result of Mid-High-Heeled Footwear on Young Adult Women regarding the effects of high heeled shoes on the body posture of adolescents . They suggested that wearing regularly high heels can lead to permanent malposition of the spine and the legs . The results of our study show the wearing mid-high-heeled shoes may decrease the forward inclination of the body [ 11 ] , and pelvic anteversions [ 15 ] . However , asymmetry [ 11 ] while wearing high-heels was not found . The effect of producing an uneconomic body position [ 8 , 9 ] could not be assessed using our methods .
Postural changes like a compensatory increase in lumbar lordosis and pelvic tilt are suggested to provoke lumbar back pain in habitual wearers of high heels [ 10 , 15 , 18 ] . Decreased lumbar lordosis was usually described in habitual wearers [ 14 , 19 , 20 ] . Increased lumbar lordosis [ 21 ] associated with high-heeled shoes has been reported for inexperienced wearers [ 9 , 22 ] , or adolescent experienced wearers [ 15 ] . Cowley et al . [ 23 ] concluded in their review that increased lumbar lordosis angles were found predominantly in inexperienced users . Some authors have suggested that high-heeled shoes may not affect lumbar lordosis [ 12 ] . This is a duplicate from the introduction .
Similarly to the results obtained in the current research , the angle of the forward trunk inclination was found to be statistically significant . Its increase gradually with the increasing height of the heels [ 11 ] was already suggested in other studies [ 11 ] . The authors explained observed changes as the reaction in the body ’ s center of gravity and the attempt to maintain postural stability . The only significant difference was noticed between barefoot patients and those wearing 4-cm high-heeled shoes . When measuring the parameters in patients wearing 10-cm heels , the trend toward increasing body inclination was preserved ; however , these differences were not significant . The paper mentions that higher values were observed for the angle of trunk inclination , despite the data showing a decrease in the angle of trunk bend ( ATB angle ), rendering the conclusions unreliable .
The cervical spine may show increased lordosis due to the forward displacement of the head [ 18 ] . Weitkunat et al . [ 8 ] found that most of the high heels-related adaptive responses to the antero-cranial shift of the center of gravity occur in the lower extremities , especially the knees . An additional mechanism to shift the center of gravity backward was an increase of cervical lordosis . Franklin et al . [ 14 ] showed significantly lower anterior pelvic tilt , lumbar lordosis , and sacral base angles with high heels when compared with zero heel inclination using a three-dimensional electrogoniometer . Russell et al . [ 12 ] using a spinal mouse device showed that highheeled shoes did not affect lumbar lordosis . Drzał-Grabiec and Snela [ 11 ] using moiré photogrammetry found that wearing high-heeled shoes increases the forward inclination of the body and increases its asymmetry . However , the results are unreliable due to the absence of parameter definitions used to conclude , as well as discrepancies between the presented data and the text . De Oliveira Pezzan et al . [ 15 ] used custom-built software for postural assessment and photographs in the sagittal plane and extracted angles based on the location of fiducial markers found that the effect of increased lumbar lordosis and pelvic anteversions . Schroeder and Hollander [ 4 ] showed a small to moderate the effect of high-heeled shoes on static and dynamic pelvic positions ( sagittal pelvic tilt and axial pelvic rotation ) in females habituated to the
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