INTRODUCTION In France, most studies of low back pain (LBP) have been carried out among workers or patients. Until very recently, the frequency of LBP in the general population was not known, because National Health Surveys did not include questions on LBP. OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of LBP in the French population aged 30 to 64 years. MATERIALS AND METHODS The main data were from...

BACKGROUND Urban taxi drivers differ from other professional drivers in their exposures to physical and psychosocial hazards in the work environment. Epidemiological data on low back pain (LBP) of this occupational group are very scarce. AIMS To examine LBP in taxi drivers and its association with prolonged driving and other occupational factors. METHODS We analyzed the cross-sectional data...

Introduction Endurance of the back muscles is considered as an important contributing factor in the development of low back pain. Currently, researchers are looking at reliable methods for measuring the back muscle’s fatigue rate by surface electromyogram (EMG). Many of these studies are still at the experimental stage and the feasibility of using EMG as a clinical tool for such purpose remains...

[Purpose] The purpose of the present study was to use kinematic variables to identify the effects of 8/weeks' performance of a gyrokinesis exercise on the gait pattern of females with chronic low back pain. [Subjects] The subjects of the present study were females in their late 20s to mid 30s who were chronic back pain patients. [Methods] A 3-D motion analysis system was used to measure the cha...

Exercise has long been a standard of treatment for back pain. Over the last 2 decades, the use of intense, non-pain-contingent exercises for treatment of chronic back pain has received increased advocacy. The main goals of these treatments are to improve functioning of painful lumbar soft tissue and to decrease the fears and concerns of patients about using their backs for daily activities. The...

Visually presented biological motion stimuli activate regions in the brain that are also related to musculo-skeletal pain. We therefore hypothesized that chronic pain impairs the perception of visually presented actions that involve body parts that hurt. In the first experiment, chronic back pain (CLBP) patients and healthy controls judged the lifted weight from point-light biological motion di...

Psychologically and physically straining work conditions increase the risk of low back pain (LBP) development. According to recent recovery theories, leisure time recovery can counteract the negative influences of work stress on health. Similarly, a recent empirical work has indicated a moderating role of recovery on the link between stress and health issues. In this paper, a theoretical model ...

Stabilization exercise program has become the most popular treatment method in spinal rehabilitation since it has shown its effectiveness in some aspects related to pain and disability. However, some studies have reported that specific exercise program reduces pain and disability in chronic but not in acute low back pain, although it can be helpful in the treatment of acute low back pain by red...

Ridges in the state space distribution of finite-time Lyapunov exponents can be used to locate dynamical boundaries. We describe a method for obtaining dynamical boundaries using only trajectories reconstructed from time series, expanding on the current approach which requires a vector field in the phase space. We analyze problems in musculoskeletal biomechanics, considered as exemplars of a cl...

Received: 29 Jun. 2015 Accepted: 24 Oct. 2015