PREVALENCE OF UPPER CROSS SYNDROME AMONG THE MEDICAL STUDENTS OF UNIVERSITY OF LAHORE

Background: Upper cross syndrome is becoming more prevalent in today’s population. The syndrome is expressed as a postural disorder presenting with over active pectoralis musculature and upper trapezius musculature. Also there is inhibition of lower and middle trapezius musculature, which results in winging of scapula, elevated and abducted scapula. This scapulardyskinesia there by resulted inrounding of shoulders. The syndrome is often associated with bad posture in routine life oroccupation of a person.The purpose of the study is to determine the prevalence of upper cross syndrome in medical students of Lahore. Methods: A convenience sample of 384 medical students was selected from university of Lahore, based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Medical students of age between 17 to 2 years with sound physical and mental state were included. Students with any trauma, recent injury, recent fracture or surgery and any serious underlying pathology that may interfere with mobility of upper limb were excluded from the study. The research was a cross sectional observational study and self-administered questionnaires were circulated among participants and the data was analyzed using SPSS version 21. Reed-co scale was used to analyze the proper alignment of head, neck and shoulder; where as wall push test was used to assess the abnormal protrusion of scapula. Results: The study have revealed that48.7% population of the students haveneck pain;and the results have concluded that high prevalence of upper cross syndrome in medical students of university of Lahore and a 66.8% of population was found to have poor studying posture. Conclusion: In this study relation between upper cross syndrome and bad posture were seen and it was found that the individuals suffering with upper cross syndrome were somehow related to bad posture or indulge in activities which make individual to adopt a posture of high physiologic cost there by leading to muscular imbalance that will yield upper cross syndrome and prevalence of upper cross syndrome in medical students of University of Lahore was found to be 37.1%.