Spine
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Comparative Study
Cineradiographic motion analysis of normal lumbar spine during forward and backward flexion.
Motion characteristics of the lumbar spine in the sagittal plane were investigated in vivo using cineradiography. ⋯ During forward flexion of the lumbar spine, initial motion started from upper segments to the lower segments with phase lags. During backward flexion, initial motion started from the lower segments to the upper segments. Motion profiles of the vertebral corners during forward flexion were similar to those during backward flexion at L3/L4 and L4/L5. The motion profiles at L5/S1 were different between both flexions.
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A longitudinal cohort study of patients with acute, work-related low back pain undergoing physical therapy treatment. ⋯ Because the nonorganic tests are purported to serve as screening tests, cut-off values were selected that minimized false-negative results. Even with optimal cut-off values, none of the nonorganic tests served as effective screening tools. Other screening tools may prove more effective for the early identification of patients at increased risk for delay in returning to work after an episode of acute low back pain.
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Decrease in trunk muscular response to perturbation with preactivation of lumbar spinal musculature.
An experimental study of healthy subjects' trunk muscle responses to force perturbations at differing angles and steady state efforts. ⋯ Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the spine can be stabilized by the stiffness of activated muscles, obviating the need for active muscle responses to perturbations.
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Comparative Study
Effects of core body temperature on changes in spinal somatosensory-evoked potential in acute spinal cord compression injury: an experimental study in the rat.
Acute spinal cord injury was induced by a clip compression model in rats to approximate spinal cord injury encountered in spinal surgery. Spinal somatosensory-evoked potential neuromonitoring was used to study the electrophysiologic change. ⋯ Systemic cooling may protect against the detrimental effects of aggressive spinal surgical procedures. There is still not enough published information available to establish statistically and ethically acceptable intraoperative neuromonitoring warning and intervention criteria conclusively. Therefore, an urgent need exists for further investigation. Although a reduction of more than 50% in evoked potential still seems acceptable as an indicator of impending neural function loss, maintenance of more than 50% of baseline evoked potential is no guarantee of normal postoperative neural function, especially at lower than normal temperatures.