Evaluation of Body Posture during Class II Functional Treatment with Fränkel II: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to evaluate the changes in body posture in pubertal subjects characterized by Skeletal Class II with mandibular retrusion pre- and post-Fränkel II (FR-2). The treatment of Skeletal Class II with functional therapy has been already correlated with changes in cervical posture, but no previous studies investigated the possible relation with the posture of the whole body. This is an observational longitudinal study conducted on 17 Caucasian subjects (6 males, 11 female) with average age 10.7 ± 3.5. Posturostabilometric evaluation was performed before the beginning of the orthodontic treatment (t0), after 12 ± 2 months (t1) and after 24 ± 3 months at the end of the treatment with FR-2 (t2). The following stabilometric parameters were extracted: weight distribution (WD), bar torsion angle (BTA), and barycenter (Xmm). Both WD (p = 0.0154) and BTA (p = 0.0003) showed a significant improvement during the treatment with Friedman test and ANOVA test, respectively, showing how the overall balance and weight distribution of the body can benefit from a functional therapy with jaw advancement. The posturostabilometric platform can be considered a functional indicator of therapy effectiveness because it shows the improving trend of the parameters. Future research is needed, based on the promising results obtained in the current study.