A pathologist, if I am not mistaken.
Well, that’s what many of them claim to do.
Your cites don’t seem to show anything about fused vertebrae or reduced lung function as a result of leaning forward. Do you have anything on that?
Regards,
Shodan
As far as reduced lung function as a result of leaning forward, that’s something you can test out for yourself. Maybe it’s just my build, but I have a hard time breathing when I’m tying my shoes.
Was anyone else thinking of Dr. Nick Riviera when they saw PostureVideos post? I was waiting for him to talk about the severe condition known as Bonus Eruptus.
Not at hand. While I was trained in structural work and injury treatment in school, it hasn’t been my specialty so I don’t work with it very often.
I think I’ve lost track of the argument here. I, too, am dubious (highly dubious, in fact) that forward posture can cause vertebrae to fuse. I believe most of the transformation and injury that can occur will be to soft tissue. But then again, I’m a massage therapist, so I see most everything as a soft tissue problem. 
I’m also wondering if by “reduced lung function” whomever posted that meant “reduced lung capacity”?
What doesn’t make sense is that the head will be in a neutral postion when you sleep which would prevent foreshortening.
Who says the head is in a neutral position when asleep?
Hey, this thread really took off. Thanks for the replies! I’m a chronic cubicle worker and computer addict with fairly poor posture. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to end up fused like Quasimodo by 35. Thankfully, that doesn’t appear to be the case! 
I’m working on the posture, though. Neck pain and posture-headaches suck!
Thanks for the links, but what I see still falls short on demonstrating long-term anatomic changes from “forward-head posture”, or that any type of therapy prevents or reverse such alleged changes.
I am not an orthopedist, but I recall from my training that the human body has an awful lot of bones, tendons, ligaments, muscles and other connective tissue to hold things together, and it is no easy matter to “get out of alignment”, nor to correct such changes. This is purely anecdotal, but I spend hours at a microscope every day in what must be some form of “forward-head posture”, and I do not yet have foreshortened muscles making me resemble Quasimodo, nor do my colleagues (the same cannot be said of certain other docs, but that is another story). 
As noted it’s what they claim to do, but the reality is that chiropractic “subluxations” have not been demonstrated to exist in the real world. What chiros do is hands-on contact that may help some people, but is no better than massage or physical therapy overall (if I had the need of this type of therapy I’d sooner go to a massage or physical therapist than a chiro - less woo and less chance of a rare but severe injury (such as that associated with chiropractic neck cracking).
Well! That’s good enough for me. 
It’s even better for me. 
I don’t say this often enough: thanks, Jackmanni.
As a general rule, if the only source discussing a medical condition is a chiropractor, it doesn’t exist.
Hmmm. I posted links that reference studies from medical doctors, as well as studies done by massage therapists, but because the people who discuss this issue most are chiropractors it seems to cloud the waters here.
I’ve been on this board long enough to know that there is a general trend to denounce chiropractic as “quackery” and then to do the equivalent of “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU” when people try to have a discussion about it. Defending chiropractic is hardly the hill I care to die on, but I will ask you this: What if it’s not binary? What if chiropractic in reality is neither “the answer to all life’s health problems” or “snake-oil quackery” but somewhere in between? I see an awful lot of babies being thrown out with bathwater on this site in this regard.
Anyway, if some folks here don’t want to “believe” that tendons, ligaments, bones and muscles can act in a less than ideal way sometimes and through injury or misuse cause things in the body to grow lopsided then I don’t expect I can change your mind. Perhaps the fault is mine for not wanting to write a definitive research paper here in order to fight ignorance. I lack the tenacity for such an argument.
I believe that the term is “scientism.” And a gold star right back at you for that post.
Ooh, I’ve needed that word for years and didn’t know of it! Thanks, tdn!
BTW, I’m a very big fan of the scientific method. Big, big, fan. But it doesn’t work for everything. (e.g., It’s very hard to do a double-blind test for massage. YOU try giving someone a massage without their knowledge! :p)
But, wait, what is the name for practitioners of such a philosophy? If racists practice racism, egoists practice egoism, jingoists practice jingoism…
Heh. Need a different word.
Scientismists?
If someone worships the Sierra, are they Sierramists? What do they drink?
I was referring more generally to the specific claims the OP asked about, and I’m not saying all chiropractors are quacks. I’m saying that any claims made by chiropractors will generally be backed up in mainstream medical literature if they’re true.
No, you said this:
Which, as I read it, infers that mainstream medical literature has already covered all possible phenomena. I assure you, they haven’t.
Whatever it is, I wonder if it shot out of their nose like mine just did?
I think that’s a fair reading of what I said, and you’re right. The point, however, is that if a claim hasn’t been evaluated on an evidentiary basis, one’s medical decisions should not take that claim into account.
We’re getting closer to agreement, here.