Open AccessDiscriminative changes in sitting and standing postural steadiness in patients with chronic low back pain
Author(s) -
Si-Huei Lee,
Huey-Wen Liang
Publication year - 2023
Publication title -
ieee transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1558-0210
pISSN - 1534-4320
DOI - 10.1109/tnsre.2023.3312982
Subject(s) - bioengineering , computing and processing , robotics and control systems , signal processing and analysis , communication, networking and broadcast technologies
Postural control is reduced in patients with low back pain (LBP), which is considered an important factor attributing to the chronicity of LBP and a target for treatment. It is proposed that the changes in postural steadiness in sitting reflect the trunk control better than those in standing, but the previous study results are inconsistent. Thus, this study aimed to compare trunk sway parameters during standing and sitting between patients with chronic LPB (CLBP) and controls using a tracker-based posturography to record the trunk displacement trajectories at the lumbar level (TD L ). A total of 64 participants (32 patients with CLBP and 32 pain-free controls) were included in this study. The postural sway was measured under four conditions, sitting or standing on unstable surface, with eyes open or closed. The TD L parameters were compared between the two groups to explore their discriminative ability. The CLBP group had more body sway than the control group, characterized by several TD L parameters in sitting with eyes closed and standing with eyes open. The TD L parameters with the highest area under the curve according to the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis were the root mean square distance and mean frequency in the medial-lateral direction obtained in the sitting with eyes closed. In conclusion, we confirmed the advantage of using sitting posturographic parameters as a sensitive measure to detect impaired trunk control in patients with CLBP. The results would help choose sensitive outcome measures to reflect the postural control of patients with LBP.