The Effect of Age on the Alignment and Range of Motion of the Cervical Spine: A ‎Review Study

The range of motion and alignment of the cervical spine in healthy people is influenced by various factors such as genetics and age. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of age on the alignment and range of motion of the cervical spine.

In this study, a comprehensive study on the effect of age on the alignment and range of motion of the cervical spine by searching in Google Scholar, PubMed and Sciencedirect databases with the keywords “Cervical Spine”, “Neck, Range of Motion”, “Cervical Alignment” , “Cervical Angle” and “Age-Related Change” and also in Persian databases of Google Scholar, Megapiper, Irandac, Mgiran, SID, MedLib, Iran Medax and Iran Science and Technology Research Institute with keywords “Neck,” “Cervical Spine”, “Range of Motion”, “Neck Alignment”, “Neck Angle” and “Age-Related Changes” were performed from 2000 to January 2021. After collecting the search results, first the title and then the abstract of the articles were studied. If the articles complied with the inclusion and exclusion criteria, their results were used in the review study, otherwise discarded.

In the search of texts, after deleting similar cases, 37 articles, with similar subject to our study, were selected. These studies mainly investigated the effect of age on range of motion and Cervical Alignment in healthy individuals.

According to the results of studies, the range of motion in the cervical spine decreased with age, which of course does not follow a regular pattern because in some ages it increases and in some ages it decreases. Also, age has influence not only on the range of motion but also on the alignment of the cervical spine. Therefore, due to individual differences and people's lifestyles and occupations, it is very difficult to understand whether we always see an increase in cervical lordosis and a decrease in range of motion with age. Therefore, we should be cautious and should not draw a general rule for all people, so there is a need for more research in this area in the future.