Consistency of cervical and cervicothoracic posture in standing.

The reproducibility of cervical and cervicothoracic curvature in an unconstrained standing position was examined in 17 volunteers. Parameters investigated included three angles of cervical inclination (the angle between the horizontal and a line drawn between C2 and C7, C2 and T1, and C2 and T2 respectively), cervical lordosis, and cervicothoracic kyphosis. Reliability of these parameters for within-trial, between-trial (intraday), and between-day (one week apart) measures was calculated from lateral photographs using intraclass correlation coefficients ICC (2,1). All measures of cervical inclination were highly reproducible as was cervicothoracic kyphosis, but cervical lordosis had more variable reproducibility. These findings suggest that cervicothoracic kyphosis and cervical inclination are appropriate to use for determining the effects of intervention in either clinical practice or research.