• Lars Henrik Larsen, Rogerio Pessoto Hirata, and Thomas Graven-Nielsen.
• SMI, Department of Health Science and Technology, Faculty of Medicine, Aalborg University, Denmark; University College North Denmark, Department of Physiotherapy, Aalborg, Denmark.
• J Pain. 2018 May 1; 19 (5): 542-551.

AbstractLow back pain (LBP) patients show reorganized trunk muscle activity but if similar changes are manifest in recurrent LBP (R-LBP) patients during asymptomatic periods remains unknown. In 26 healthy and 27 currently asymptomatic R-LBP participants electromyographic activity (EMG) was recorded from trunk and gluteal muscles during series of stepping up and down on a step bench before and during experimentally intramuscular induced unilateral and bilateral LBP. Pain intensity was assessed using numeric rating scale (NRS) scores. Root mean square EMG (RMS-EMG) normalized to maximal voluntary contraction EMG and pain-evoked differences from baseline (ΔRMS-EMG) were analyzed. Step task duration was calculated from foot sensors. R-LBP compared with controls showed higher baseline RMS-EMG and NRS scores of experimental pain (P < .05). In both groups, bilateral compared with unilateral experimental NRS scores were higher (P < .001) and patients compared with controls reported higher NRS scores during both pain conditions (P < .04). In patients, unilateral pain decreased ΔRMS-EMG in the Iliocostalis muscle and bilateral pain decreased ΔRMS-EMG in all back and gluteal muscles during step tasks (P < .05) compared with controls. In controls, bilateral versus unilateral experimental pain induced increased step task duration and trunk RMS-EMG whereas both pain conditions decreased step task duration and trunk RMS-EMG in R-LBP patients compared with controls (P < .05).Copyright © 2018 The American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

29 keywords...

hide…