In brief: Sixteen professional ballet dancers from the Ohio Ballet in Akron were x-rayed, tested on a Cybex dynamometer, and tested for maximal aerobic power on a treadmill to determine musculoskeletal and cardiopulmonary capabilities. The x-rays indicated that the dancers had metatarsal abnormalities characteristic of such artists. The Cybex data were considered normal for the knee. The dancers had higher than normal cardiopulmonary capacity, although it was still in the range of nonendurance athletes.
Low back pain is commonly seen in physical therapy practice, and many methods of treatment are used to reduce it. In this article, we discuss the magnitude of the low back pain problem, outline the various treatment methods, and develop a strategy to classify and standardize the treatment of the patient who has low back pain. We will develop this thought process by discussing five management considerations: (1) the dilemma of diagnosis, (2) the information gained from the assessment, (3) a patient classification system, (4) the objectives of the low back treatment process, and (5) a proposed physical therapy intervention model that matches the objectives of treatment to the classification of the patient.
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