Abstract—This study aims to explore the effects on pulmonary function, lumbar curve, and comfort evaluations in the postures as slumped sitting, lumbar support sitting, sacrum support sitting, and slanting sitting.
10 healthy people were recruited to join this study. An experimental chair was innovated so that the regions corresponding to thoracic vertebrae, lumbar vertebrae, and sacrum were adjustable separately. The researchers then employed gas analyzers, goniometer, and comfort evaluation questionnaires to collect data and conduct statistic analyses.
The results show that pulmonary function and comfort evaluation in sacrum support sitting posture appear to be substantially better than all the others. Regarding lumbar angle, lumbar support sitting posture results in a significant lordosis, and is closer to the lumbar curve in standing posture.

Index Terms—Posture, lumbar, wheelchairs, rehabilitation.

Chun-Ting Li and Chih-Han Chang are with the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, No.1, University Road, Tainan City 701, Taiwan (e-mail: p8897109@mail.ncku.edu.tw, cchang@mail.bme.ncku.edu.tw).
Jheng-Hung Huangn and Kuen-Horng Tsai are with Graduate Institute of Mechatronic System Engineering, National University of Tainan, No. 33, Sec. 2, Shu-Lin St., Tainan 70005, Taiwan (e-mail: ctli@ymail.com, tsaikh@mail.nutn.edu.tw).

Cite: Chun-Ting Li, Chih-Han Chang, Jheng-Hung Huang, and Kuen-Horng Tsai, "Comparison of Various Sitting Postures on Pulmonary Function, Lumbar Curvature, and Comfort Evaluations," International Journal of Bioscience, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics vol. 4, no. 5, pp. 331-335, 2014.