title: Toward a clinical test of lumbar spine kinesthesia.
abstract: Poor lumbar spine kinesthetic awareness is often observed in low back pain patients and is usually evaluated qualitatively in the clinical situation. The purpose of this study was to investigate a simple, kinesthetic test for the lumbar spine. The experimental protocol utilized a 3Space Fastrak to determine the error, within and between days, of 10 healthy subjects in reproducing a neutral lumbopelvic (T10-S2) position following movement into flexion. The mean value of the repositioning error for the sagittal plane movement (flexion/extension) over the three repetitions within day 1 was 2.6 +/- 1.2 degrees and for day 2 was 2.6 +/- 1.7 degrees. No statistically significant difference existed between days. These repositioning errors were well within the ranges described by other authors for various asymptomatic joint complexes. These results provide a basis for further evaluation of this test on patients with low back pain to investigate its ability to detect any kinesthetic deficit.
authors.affiliation: Sports Medicine Centre, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Maffey-Ward
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Jull
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wellington
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007699:Kinesthesis / Q000502:physiology*; D008159:Lumbar Vertebrae / Q000502:physiology*; D008161:Lumbosacral Region / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011187:Posture; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D016059:Range of Motion, Articular / Q000502:physiology*