Evaluation of Craniocervical Posture in the Patients with Chronic Tensional Headache

만성 긴장성 두통환자에 있어서 두경부 자세의 평가

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of craniocervical posture on craniomandibular disorders with chronic headache. The author measured craniocervical posture on frontal and sagittal plane with photographs for 26 headache patients, 23 TMD patients, and 27 nonpatients. Range of cervical spine motion was also measured. The bilateral electromyograms of masseter and anterior temporalis muscles were recorded at rest and during maximum clenching. The results were as follows : On the lateral view photos, eye-tragus-C7 line angle was larger and the tragus-C7-horizontal line angle was smaller in the patient groups than in the nonpatient group (p<0.05). On the frontal view photos, mouth corner line angle was larger in the headache patient group than in the nonpatient group and TMD patient group (p<0.05) Interclavicular angle was smaller in the headache patient group and TMD patient grop than in the nonpatient (p<0.01) The right and left differences of SAIC-plane distance and finger tip-plane distance were significantly larger in headache patient group than TMD patient group and nonpatient group (p<0.01, p<0.001). Cervical motion range was smaller in the TMD patient group and headache patient group than in the nonpatient group (p<-.001, p<0.05, p<0.05). The resting EMG activities of right masseter muscle were higher in the headache patient group than in the nonpatient group (p<0.05). However, the EMG activities of masseter and anterior temporalis muscles during maximal clenching were lower in the patient group than in the nonpatient grop (p<0.01). The asymmetry index of resting EMG of masseter muscles was higher in the headache patient group than nonpatient group (p<0.05).