Effect of four Weeks of Corrective Exercises on Forward Head Angle and Spirometry Parameters of Female College Students

Forward head posture (FHP) is one of the most common faulty postures which leads to improper organization of the neck muscles and limitening of pulmonary capacity and whereby breathing becomes difficult. The goal of the current study was to evaluate the effect of 4 weeks of corrective exercises on forward head angle (FHA) and spirometry parameters of college girl students. Thirty female students from the University of Tehran who suffered from FHP were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The subjects performed the exercises twice a day for 4 weeks. The forward head angle and spirometry parameters were measured before and after the treatment. Collected data were analyzed using the T-dependent test via SPSS (version 21). P-value was set at 0.05. After the intervention, the experimental group had a significant reduction on forward head angle (p<0.05). Also, significant differences were observed in Maximal Voluntary Ventilation (MVV) (p<0.05). No significant changes were observed in Forced Expiratory Volume in One second (FEV1), Peak Inspiratory Flow Rate (PIFR), and Peak expiratory Flow Rate (PEFR) (p>0.05). The data revealed that corrective exercise is a simple and non-invasive method to decrease FHA and can be helpful to increase MVV parameter.