Correlations among thoracic kyphosis degree, pulmonary function and quality of life in osteoporotic women

Abstract

This study examines the influence of thoracic kyphosis on respiratory function, evaluated through spirometry, muscle strength measurement and cyrtometry and on quality of life in osteoporotic women. Subjects: 14 women with densitometric diagnosis of osteoporosis in the spine (mean age: 68,7 ± 2) were evaluated. All subjects were submitted to a pulmonary function test, a measurement of thoracic kyphosis angle and answered a questionnaire to measure the quality of life. The data was statistically
analyzed by Wilcoxon's non-parametric tests and showed non-significant
diference (p = 0.05) between the values obtained in the spirometry and in the preview spirometric values to age. In order to check if there were correlations between kyphosis degree and respiratory variables and quality
of life variables, the Pearson coefficient was obtained between the variables. It was observed that there were not any significant correlations
between the variables, except between the kyphosis degree and level of pain. The results found in this study allowed to conclude that, for this sample, there were not statistical significant correlations between the kyphosis degree and pulmonary function and quality of life. The correlation was significant between the degree of kyphosis and level of pain.