Abstract: Musculoskeletal evaluation skills are needed to examine postural compensation techniques, but little is known about ground reaction forces (GRF) in standing posture. Even though a number of studies have evaluated GRF in patients with low back pain (LBP) during vertical perturbations, it would be important to consider compensation characteristics which might be associated with abnormal patterns of postural responses. The vertical excursions of the body center of mass (BCOM) were measured with delay time and normalized amplitude of GRF. Overall, there was no difference based on the vertical excursion of the BCOM (F=0.12, p=0.90), amplitude of the normalized GRF (F=0.16, p=0.74), or response time (F=1.98, p=0.17) between subjects with and without spinal stenosis.There was a gender d…

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The objective of this cross-sectional study was to explore the associations between pain locations, responses to the posterior pelvic pain provocation (P4) test, responses to the active straight leg raise (ASLR) test and disability in late pregnancy.283 women in gestation week 30 (mean age 31.3 years; 59% nullipara) completed a questionnaire (including pain drawing and Disability Rating Index, DRI). A physiotherapist blinded for the questionnaire data assessed responses to the P4 and ASLR tests. The pain drawing was used to: 1) distinguish between Pelvic girdle pain (PGP) and low back pain (LBP); 2) discriminate between pain locations within the pelvic area.A large variation was found in DRI within each pain location group. Women with PGP were more afflicted than the women with LBP and tho…

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In conclusion, adolescents with NSCLBP reported moderate pain and disability with deficits in trunk and squat endurance. That they remained physically active is at odds with the activity avoidance and subsequent deconditioning model proposed for adults with NSCLBP. Differences between control and pain groups on history of stressful life events suggest this may contribute to adolescent NSCLBP. Differences with sitting posture are only seen when patients were sub-classified. (Source: Manual Therapy)

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I would like to thank Wand and colleagues for their comments on our paper. I agree that psychological factors (including depression but not only depression) may influence the results of sensory testing in whiplash and other musculoskeletal conditions. Indeed we have already shown some association between psychological distress, posttraumatic stress symptoms and sensory hypersensitivity (). Elevated sensory detection thresholds are also a feature of other psychological conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder () and posttraumatic stress symptoms show some association with hypoaesthesia in whiplash (). Thus the point here is that various psychological factors may be associated with altered sensory perception. (Source: Manual Therapy)

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Conclusions: The risk of major adverse events with manual therapy is low, but around half manual therapy patients may experience minor to moderate adverse events after treatment. The relative risk of adverse events appears greater with drug therapy but less with usual care. (Source: Manual Therapy)

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In this study, chronic whiplash patients demonstrated sensory hypoaesthesia whereas idiopathic neck pain patients did not, and while both patient groups had lowered pressure pain thresholds, only the whiplash group demonstrated lowered cold pain thresholds. (Source: Manual Therapy)

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Abstract: Pelvic floor muscle (PFM) dysfunction has been recently associated with the development of low back pain (LBP). Transabdominal ultrasound imaging has been established as an appropriate method for visualizing and measuring PFM function. No study has directly evaluated PFM function in individuals with and without LBP. The purpose of this study was to investigate the PFM function in women with and without LBP using transabdominal ultrasound. Convenience sample of 40 non-pregnant female participated in the study. Subjects were categorized into two groups: with LBP (n = 20) and without LBP (n = 20). The amount of bladder base movement on ultrasound (normalized to body mass index) was measured in all subjects and considered as an indicator of PFM function. Statistical analysis (Ind…

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This study investigated whether a grade III postero-anterior rotatory joint mobilisation technique applied to the T4 vertebra at a frequency of 0.5 Hz had demonstrably greater effects than a validated placebo intervention on skin conductance (SC) in the hands of healthy subjects.A power analysis calculation was performed and using a double blind, placebo-controlled, independent groups design, 36 healthy subjects (18–35 years) were randomly assigned to two groups (placebo intervention or treatment intervention). A BioPac unit recorded continuous SC measures before, during and after each experimental intervention. An exit questionnaire was used to validate the expectancy effects of the placebo intervention. Results demonstrated a significant difference between groups in SC in the right ha…

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Homedics SBM-300 Therapist Select Shiatsu Massaging Cushion (Health and Beauty)
By HoMedics

Buy new: $67.98
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Customer tags: massage(33), shiatsu(32), homedics(29), back massager(22), massager(19), massage cushion(18), cushion(7), back knots(4), back(3), sbm 300(2), chair-massage(2), back health

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Abstract: The ability to reproduce a specified head-on-trunk position can be an indirect test of cervical proprioception. This ability is affected in subjects with neck pain, but it is unclear whether and how much pain or continuous muscle contraction factors contribute to this effect. We studied the influence of a static unilateral neck muscle contraction task (5 min of lateral flexion at 30% of maximal voluntary contraction) on head repositioning ability in 20 subjects (10 women, 10 men; mean age 37 years) with healthy necks. Head repositioning ability was tested in the horizontal plane with 30° target and neutral head position tests; head position was recorded by Zebris®, an ultrasound-based motion analyser. Head repositioning ability was analysed for accuracy (mean of signed differe…

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