okay so this is my mum's x-ray just
looking at the date here it was taken May
last year so to orient you again
here's her chin and right up here is
the skull bone the occiput and I don't
know if you can get a sense I'm going to
put this beside my x-ray in a moment but
there's quite a lot of forward head
positioning I've actually drawn on here
that's the upper part first vertebra
just as I marked on my x-ray versus where it
should be right back here and that's
come a long way forward this red line
that shows up is the ideal neck
position and here the back of my mum's
vertebra here she's actually sitting a
long way forward and let me just zoom in
on that so you can see that yeah you can
really see that on this one here so
we've got ideal and then look where hers
is sitting quite a long way forward
and as a result I'm going to actually
lift this and zoom it right in see if I
can do that without
shaking it too much there we go
i'm going to actually lift this up in a minute
yeah okay so I want to give you an idea
when I come in really close that her disc
spaces are still pretty good here but as
a result of being so far forward there
you can really see that all the way
forward it's 52 millimetres having not
had any these posture exercises over the
years she does now she's got a
chiropractor for a daughter but what's
happened with my mum is these joints
that you saw on my neck that had very
big spaces have closed right down on my
mum's they've become quite arthritic you
can see quite white and fluffy looking
that's osteoarthritis in there so let me set
this back down there we go and zoom
right back out okay and I'm going to
slide this over and put mine beside it see
if we can do that really important with
people with forward head posture often
develop the fatty neck lump this is what
people are often really concerned with
they often come in just noticing they've
got that going on that's what you're
seeing in here this extra bit of lucency
on the x-ray it's where the body has laid
down more fat to protect the spine in
this area because as the head comes
forward that way this part starts to
round and this is what gives you a
little more of the humping as you get
older and this is why it's so important
that we catch it at this stage mine again
I just tuck that
underneath there we go
so yes I have some forward head carriage too
but you can see I'm a lot more upright
than my mum again let me zoom the camera
right in I think i can do that
there we go so let me show you mine and
you can see the two dots 120 millimetres
of forward head carriage and looking at
those joints see those nice spaces the
bits of black all the way along and then
take a look at my mum's she's got that
big gap between the dots and notice how
those spaces in the joints have closed
right down her disc spaces are okay but
she has arthritis in those joints that
looks very
different let's just zoom out don't know
if you can make sense of that
let me just set that down
zoom right back in okay so i hope
that gives you quite a good idea quite
far forward and slightly forward and
this is something that I work on ongoing
really to keep myself healthy so I hope
sharing that with you highlights the
importance of correcting forward head
posture and I hope you enjoyed that
thanks very much for watching