Assessment of the Body posture of mouth-breathing children and adolescents [Avaliação da postura corporal em crianças e adolescentes respiradores orais]

Objective: to investigate associations between mouth breathing (mbr),nose breathing (nbr) and body posture classification and clinical variables in children and adolescents,by comparing patients with mouth breathing syndrome with a control group of similar age. methods: this was an observational,analytical,controlled,crosssectional study conducted at a university hospital. children aged 5 years or more were recruited to one of two groups: healthy controls (nbr) or an mbr group. the mbr group comprised patients with a diagnosis of mouth breathing syndrome confirmed by clinical examination by a physician plus nasal endoscopy. the control group comprised healthy volunteers of the same age,with nbr confirmed by medical examination. all participants underwent postural assessment. data were analyzed using the mann- whitney nonparametric test,the chi-square test and fisher's exact test,to a significance level of 0.05%. results: a total of 306 mbr and 124 nbr were enrolled. mouth breathers were more likely to be male (p = 0.0002),have more frequent and more severe nasal obstruction and larger tonsils (p = 0.0001) than nbr. mouth breathers also exhibited higher incidence rates of allergic rhinitis (p = 0.0001),of thoracic respiratory pattern (p = 0.0001),high-arched palate (p = 0.0001) and unfavorable postural classifications (p = 0.0001) with relation to the control group. postural classification scores were directly proportional to nasal obstruction (p = 0.0001) and male sex (p = 0.0008). conclusions: postural problems were significantly more common among children in the group with mouth breathing syndrome,highlighting the need for early interdisciplinary treatment of this syndrome. copyright © 2011 by sociedade brasileira de pediatria.