Laura Peeters

56 | Chapter 3 both thoracic segments (both p<0.05). For the trunk flexion task, the contribution was distributed uniformly over all trunk segments. However, when extending the trunk, the contribution decreased from caudal to cranial segments, and the difference between the two thoracic segments and the lower lumbar segment was significant (both p<0.005). The interquartile ranges for both thoracic trunk segments crossed zero, indicating that some participants showed thoracic flexion instead of extension when performing a maximum trunk extension task. There was no significant difference between left and right total range of motion, both for lateral bending (p=0.135) and axial rotation (p=0.545). There was a significant difference between flexion and extension (p<0.001). ROM [deg] 0 40 80 120 Flexion Lateral bending right Rotation right ROM [deg] -120 -80 -40 0 Extension Lateral bending left Rotation left NECK UT LT Figure 4 Range of motion (ROM) for neck, upper thoracic (UT) and lower thoracic (LT) trunk segments in the frontal, sagittal and transverse plane, when performing a maximum head flexion, extension, lateral bending or axial rotation task, respectively. Boxes represent 25 th , 50 th and 75 th percentile, wiskers minimum and maximum of non-outlier values, and dots indicate outliers (greater than 1.5 times the interquartile range).