| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4050217 | Clinical Biomechanics | 2015 | 7 Pages |
•Adequate neuromuscular control of the lumbar spine is required to prevent lumbar injuries.•Trunk postural stability on a wobble chair was assessed in healthy controls and subjects with back pain.•Subjects with LBP and healthy controls showed comparable trunk postural stability.•Females and males moved their lumbar spine differently to achieve a similar performance.•Mechanisms that explain these sex differences remain to be identified.
BackgroundAdequate neuromuscular control of the lumbar spine is required to prevent lumbar injuries. A trunk postural control test protocol, controlling for the influence of body size on performance, was implemented to carry out between-subject comparisons. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of sex and low back pain status with the use of two measures of trunk postural control, the first based on chair motion, and the second based on trunk motion.MethodsThirty-six subjects (with and without low back pain) performed three 60-s trunk postural control trials with their eyes closed while seated on an instrumented wobble chair, following a calibration procedure. Chair and trunk angular kinematics were measured with an optoelectronic system. A chair-based stabilogram and a trunk-based (lumbar spine) stabilogram were created using the angular motions produced in the sagittal and frontal planes. Twenty body-sway measures were computed for each stabilogram.FindingsThe calibration task efficiently controlled for the influence of body size. Several sex effects were detected, with most of them originating from the trunk-based measures. Subjects with low back pain and healthy controls showed comparable trunk postural control.InterpretationSex differences were substantiated for the first time, but almost only with the trunk-based stabilogram, showing that the kinematic information captured on the trunk segments is quite different from what is captured on the wobble chair. Contrary to previous studies, pain status was not related to lowered trunk postural control, which can be attributed to the patients recruited or measurement reliability issues.
