Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Mar 18, 2020; 11(3): 158-166
Published online Mar 18, 2020. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v11.i3.158
Lumbar interspinous pressure pain threshold values for healthy young men and women and the effect of prolonged fully flexed lumbar sitting posture: An observational study
Martin Petersson, Allan Abbott
Martin Petersson, Department of Physiotherapy Gripen, Värmland Country Council, Karlstad SE-65224, Sweden
Martin Petersson, Allan Abbott, Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Division of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University, Linköping SE-58183, Sweden
Author contributions: Petersson M and Abbott A contributed to the study conception, design and data acquisition, data analysis, interpretation of data, drafting, critical revision and final approval of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the ethics board of second cycle education at Linkoping University, Sweden.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, provided informed written consent prior to study enrolment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interests. The authors have no financial interests.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at allan.abbott@liu.se. Participants gave informed consent for data sharing of anonymized data.
STROBE statement: This manuscript complies with the STROBE statement for reporting of observational studies.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Allan Abbott, BSc, MHSc, PhD, Associate Professor, Physiotherapist, Department of Medical and Health Sciences, Division of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University, Sandbäcksgatan 7, Linköping SE-58183, Sweden. allan.abbott@liu.se
Received: November 8, 2019
Peer-review started: November 8, 2019
First decision: December 4, 2019
Revised: February 26, 2020
Accepted: March 5, 2020
Article in press: March 5, 2020
Published online: March 18, 2020
Processing time: 129 Days and 18.7 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Exposure to prolonged sitting with a flexed lumbar posture has been suggested in previous literature to be a potential risk factor for self-reported Low back pain (LBP).

Research motivation

No study has previously investigated whether exposure to prolonged flexed sitting posture provokes discomfort in the low back and lowers interspinous pressure pain thresholds for healthy young men and women without previous back pain, despite this being a suggested risk factor for LBP.

Research objectives

To investigate whether sitting in a prolonged flexed lumbar posture provokes discomfort in the low back and lowers the interspinous pressure pain threshold in the lumbar spine for healthy young men and women without previous LBP.

Research methods

An observational study of lumbar interspinous algometry was conducted before and after 15 min of exposure to prolonged flexed sitting posture in 26 healthy participants (13 men, 13 women) between ages 20-35 years who have had no previous low back pain episodes.

Research results

Prolonged flexed sitting posture for up to 15 min provokes temporary discomfort in the lower back. There was a moderate-large decrease in lumbar interspinous pressure pain threshold after exposure for both men and women.

Research conclusions

Fully flexed lumbar sitting posture for up to 15 min provokes temporary discomfort in the lower back in most young health adults and significantly reduced lumbar interspinous pain pressure thresholds

Research perspectives

The study supports prolonged flexed lumbar posture as a potential mechanism provoking discomfort in the low back and lowering pain thresholds which may influence risk of future LBP episodes.