Penning's Radiographic Analysis

Penning's method is the most widely accepted and highly utilized method for determining the flexion/extension of motion. The extension film is superimposed on the flexion film, with the C7 vertebrae exactly matching. A line is drawn along one of the edges of the extension film onto the flexion film. Next C6 is superimposed and a second line is drawn. The angle between the two lines is the degree of flexion/extension movement between C6 and C7. In the same way, the range of motion between the other vertebrae is determined. The established average values of segmental motion have been determined for comparison by Penning's.

There are now three forms at this site which pertain to Penning's analysis, they are

1. a hard copy paper form for recording the data initially
2. the INTERACTIVE Range of Motion form which writes up a report based upon your findings.
3. a MS Word97 interactive template which calculates percent loss, and generates a graph.