title: Significance of physical performance tests for patients with low back pain.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Several research groups established functional tests to obtain performance data for mobility-related activities in patients with low back pain (LBP). In our study we aimed to assess the construct validity and associations with other measures of a battery of functional tests in relationship to physical performance on the one hand and physical capacity and variables of pain, disability and psychological variables on the other.
  
  
  METHODS
  Eight physical performance tests of everyday activities such as climbing stairs, picking up an object from the floor, bending forward, and sitting up from supine position etc. were evaluated in 106 patients with LBP and 106 control subjects.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Distribution of results in each test demonstrated a marked overlap in a number of tests between those with and those without back pain. In a factor analysis we found pronounced differences in the factorial structure of the data between patients and control subjects as well in the bivariate correlations between functional test results. There was a strong relationship between self-report disability rating (FFbH-R) and physical performance tests especially in patients whereas physical capacity tests had less relationship in patients and not at all in the control subjects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In contrast to the past and present literature, our results suggest that physical performance tests have an inherent problem to sharply differentiate patients with back pain from healthy controls and problems with inter-rater reliability. Physical performance seems to be more a matter of patients' perception of generalized disability than of restricted function.
authors.affiliation: Pain Clinic, Deparment of Anesthesiology, University Clinic, Georg-August University Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pfingsten
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lueder
authors.forename: Kerstin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Luedtke
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Petzke
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hildebrandt
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000328:Adult; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010808:Physical Examination / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
keywords: Activity Limitation; Back Pain; Disability; Physical Capacity; Physical Performance