VERTEBRAL METRICS: APPLICATION OF A INSTRUMENT TO EVALUATE THE SPINAL COLUMN IN PREGNANT WOMEN Cláudia Quaresma 1,2 , Miguel Fonseca 3 , Mário Forjaz Secca 1,4 , J. Goyri O’Neill 1,5 and J. Branco 5,6 1 CEFITEC, Dep. de Fisica, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, UNL, Quinta da Torre, P-2829-516, Caparica, Portugal 2 Departamento de Saúde, Instituto Politécnico de Beja, P-7800-111, Beja, Portugal 3 CMA, Departamento de Matemática Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, UNL, Quinta da Torre, P-2829-516, Caparica, Portugal 4 Ressonância Magnética de Caselas, Lisboa, Portugal 5 Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, UNL, Quinta da Torre, P-2829-516, Lisboa, Portugal 6 Maternidade Dr. Alfredo da Costa, Lisboa, Portugal Keywords: Biomechanics, Spinal Column, Non-invasive instrument, Evaluation, Standing position, Pregnant women. Abstract: The published literature about the biomechanical alterations of the spinal column during pregnancy is scarce and disperses, being more qualitative and limited to partial analysis of the spinal column. The main justification for a global approach to be neglected could be related to the inexistence of a non-invasive instrument that evaluates the spinal column in an objective and complete way. Thus, in order to fill this gap, we built Vertebral Metrics – a device that allows the identification of the 3D position of the vertex of each of the spinal processes, from the first cervical vertebra to the first sacral vertebra and calculate the amplitude of the angles of curvature of the spinal column in the standing position. The present work has the objective of presenting the first application of this equipment to 49 pregnant women at four different moments of pregnancy (12, 20, 32 e 37 weeks of gestation). Analysing the results we can conclude that Vertebral Metrics – is an innovative instrument in the global evaluation of the spinal column in a standing position, allowing a quantitative analysis of its shape and temporal variations. 1 INTRODUCTION In modern society, back pain is a problem relevant for the population in general and for pregnant women on particular, being a common symptom and frequently referred to in pregnancies without any pathology associated Studies indicate that 35 to 76% of pregnant women experience back pain during gestation. Although many women feel back pain during pregnancy, this has not been considered an important public health problem, not with standing the social and economic impact that this situation causes in the labour market if we take into account the levels of absenteeism resulting from that (Noren et al., 1994). The majority of researchers attributes the etiology of back pain to the biomechanical alterations of the spinal columns during the pregnancy period, however, an in depth study of this analysis has been blocked by the fact that the encompassing analytical processes are of an invasive nature and, as such, cannot be applied to pregnant women. On the other hand, the non-invasive means of diagnostic only allow partial analyses of the spinal column, not presenting a global vision. The published literature on this matter is scarce and disperse, being more qualitative and limited to partial analyses of the spinal column. The main justification for a global approach to be neglected could be related to the inexistence of a non-invasive instrument that evaluates the spinal column in an objective and complete way. Thus, and to achieve the main objective of the present study, we built Vertebral Metrics – device that allows the identification of the 3D positions of the vertex of each of the spinous processes, from the first cervical vertebra to first sacral vertebra, in the standing position (Quaresma et al., 2009 a, b). We stress that the quantitative characterization of the biomechanical alterations of the spinal column is fundamental to delineate prevention and 376 Quaresma C., Fonseca M., Forjaz Secca M., Goyri O’Neill J. and Branco J.. VERTEBRAL METRICS: APPLICATION OF A INSTRUMENT TO EVALUATE THE SPINAL COLUMN IN PREGNANT WOMEN. DOI: 10.5220/0003798303760379 In Proceedings of the International Conference on Biomedical Electronics and Devices (BIODEVICES-2012), pages 376-379 ISBN: 978-989-8425-91-1 Copyright c  2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)