Implications for the Use of Postural Analysis as a Clinical Diagnostic Tool: Reliability of Quantifying Upright Standing Spinal Postures From Photographic Images

Although the repeatability of posture was improved in the sagittal view, when a biological measure was used instead of an external vertical reference to calculate spinal angles, individual subject posture was still variable. This brings into question the effectiveness and validity of using surface skin markers to track postural changes due to clinical interventions. If the postural analysis approach is to be used to detect changes due to clinical treatment, such changes must be larger than the baseline repositioning errors seen in healthy subjects.