title: Individuals with low back pain breathe differently than healthy individuals during a lifting task.
abstract: METHODS
  Case control, repeated-measures, experimental laboratory study.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To determine if, during a whole-body lifting task, individuals with low back pain (LBP) breathe differently than age-matched controls.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Breath control may be optimized to provide increased intersegmental control of the lumbar spine through the generation of intra-abdominal pressure. Consequently, impairments in respiratory and trunk muscle coordination during lifting tasks may contribute to the occurrence or maintenance of LBP.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants without LBP (n = 30) were matched by gender and age with those presenting with chronic mechanical LBP (n = 32) of at least 1 year in duration. Participants completed a total of 8 self-paced lifts of a crate from the floor to a table, with the crate empty during 4 of the lifts and loaded to 25% of the participant's body weight during 4 of the lifts. The amount of volume in the lungs, measured as a percentage of the individual's vital capacity (%VC), was identified at 9 points during the lifting task. A 2 × 2 × 2 × 9 (group by gender by load by time) mixed-model analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), with age as the covariate, was used to identify differences among conditions and groups of %VC used during the lift.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Individuals with LBP performed the lifting task with more volume in their lungs (48.2 %VC) than healthy peers (40.9 %VC). Age significantly affected %VC used during the lift: with increasing age, participants with LBP increased inspired volume and participants without LBP decreased inspired volume.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Individuals with LBP performed a lifting task with more inhaled lung volume than individuals without LBP. These findings are consistent with the theoretical link between breath control, intra-abdominal pressure, and lumbar segmental control.
authors.affiliation: Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY, USA. mhagins@liu.edu
authors.forename: Marshall
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hagins
authors.forename: Eric M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Lamberg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D017770:Lifting; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012143:Respiratory Physiological Phenomena; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires