Electromyographic recordings of 5 types of low back pain subjects and non-pain controls in different positions

Abstract

Surface EMG recordings of bilateral paraspinal muscle tension were measured on 207 subjects (29 non-back pain controls, 20 individuals with spondyloarthritis, 52 with intervertebral disk disorders, 66 with unspecified musculoskeletal backache, 17 with some combination of the above 3 groups and 23 subjects with other types of back pain, including unknown, scoliosis and psychogenic) in 6 positions: standing, bending from the waist, rising, sitting with back unsupported, sitting with back supported and prone. Results of both individual and group analyses revealed a significant main effect of diagnosis. Post hoc analyses (Duncan's) revealed controls to have significantly lower overall EMG levels than the intervertebral disk disorders and unspecified musculoskeletal backache groups. A significant diagnosis by position interaction was observed. Analysis of simple main effects revealed this to be due primarily to control subjects during the standing position having lower EMG levels than all other groups, and intervertebral disk disorder subjects having higher EMG levels than all other groups during the supported sitting position. The importance of clearly defined diagnostic categories in low back pain research and the utility of measuring subjects in various positions are discussed.

A Meta-Analytic Review of Surface Electromyography Among Persons With Low Back Pain and Normal, Healthy Controls

“…[4][5][6] In 1 study, 5 no overall group differences were observed. These authors also reported in two studies 4,6 that disk disorder subjects had higher SEMG than normals and other LBP patients when sitting supported.…”

“…1,3,4,5,6,17,31,41,45,71 The effect sizes for the four static postures examined in these studies are presented in Table 3. In addition, 1 study examined SEMG in a sitting posture while undergoing various mental stressors.…”

“…These data come from 2 studies by Arena et al 4,6 The authors reported that static SEMG has good specificity (ability to identify normal, healthy subjects), but poor sensitivity (ability to identify persons with LBP). The average sensitivity for all static postures combined was 39.6%, and the average specificity was 90.8%.…”

Comparison of clinical examinations of back disorders and humans’ evaluation of back pain in riding school horses

“…Since “classical” imaging techniques cannot be used in the field, we evaluated horses’ potential back problems with either a manual examination by a chiropractor, who as a licensed professional, has an expertise in the evaluation of spinal disorders [15,16] or with a technique increasingly used for detecting back problems in humans: static surface EMG (sEMG). Indeed sEMG measures have been shown to reflect various muscular dysfunctions and patients with lower back pain display higher static sEMG values [17-19]. In horses, sEMG values has only been used to explore muscular activity during movements [20,21] although we have been able to demonstrate that chiropractic and sEMG evaluations were correlated in a sample of horses at rest [22].…”

Detecting and Measuring Back Disorders in Nonverbal Individuals: The Example of Domestic Horses

“…Measurement of muscular activity is one of the recent tools successfully used to detect low back pain in human patients (Arena, Sherman, Bruno, & Young, 1989, 1991. Therefore, we wondered whether it could be also a useful tool for detecting horses' back disorders (Lesimple et al, 2012).…”