Classification of Somatotype of the Elderly Women by the Lateral View

The purpose of this study was to classify the somatotype of elderly women and to extract discriminant factors of the classification. The subjects were 218 elderly women aged 60-85 years old. Data were collected from 46 anthropometric and photographic measurements of each subject and analyzed by frequencies, crosstabs, analysis of variance and discriminant analysis. The somatotype was classified into 5 types according to the lateral view. The normal type was defined as the type which the plumb line passes through the cervicale and the lateral malleolus. The lean-back type positioned the plumb line more posteriorly than normal type. The swayback type positioned the plumb line at about the same line as the lean-back type, but curvature of lateral view was prominent. The lean-forward type I and II positioned the plumb line more anteriorly than normal, but the spinal curvature of the type II disappeared. As the result of discriminant analysis, significant discriminant factors of anthropometric measurement were cervicale height, anterior waist height, neck point to posterior waist length, anterior waist length. Photographic measurement were C valve, D value, ∠${\alpha}$ and ∠${\beta}$.