STUDY DESIGN A randomized clinical trial with 1-year and 3-year telephone questionnaire follow-ups. OBJECTIVE To report a specific exercise intervention's long-term effects on recurrence rates in acute, first-episode low back pain patients. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA The pain and disability associated with an initial episode of acute low back pain (LBP) is known to resolve spontaneously in ...

Recordings of upper eyelid movements in humans, guinea pigs, and rabbits demonstrated that all three species displayed qualitatively similar patterns of eyelid movement. The relation between amplitude, duration, and maximum velocity in rabbits and humans was nearly identical. Guinea pig blinks were faster than those of rabbit and man. Electromyographic (EMG) recordings in humans demonstrated th...

BACKGROUND Postural control and falls in the elderly constitute a major health problem. The interest in balance deficits is growing, as concern about the rising costs of health care increases. This issue is particularly relevant to the elderly population in which falls occur most frequently. Postural control in the elderly was studied using a cognitive approach. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this ...

A study was made of the eye muscles activated by faradic stimulation of the frontal cortex, midbrain tegmentum, and oculomotor nerve of the macaque. The traditional view concerning the actions of the individual muscles was not confirmed. The vertical recti were found to be effective elevators and depressors of the eyes regardless of the position of the eye in the horizontal plane. At the brain ...

In previously conducted acute experiments, it was shown that spinal cord microstimulation (SCµstim) can generate functional limb movements in cats: SCµstim can selectively activate individual muscle groups, produce smooth and graded muscle contractions and reduce muscle fatigue [1-3]. Since March 1998 we have been developing a chronically implantable SCµstim system. The goal of the work is to d...

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) and antiparkinsonian medication (Meds) have proved to be effective therapies for treating bradykinesia in Parkinson's disease. However, it is not currently known how or to what extent STN stimulation alters the control signals to agonist and antagonist muscles to change movement speed. Our objective was to investigate movement speed ...

Stiffness properties of the musculo-skeletal system can be controlled by regulating muscle activation and neural feedback gain. To understand the regulation of multijoint stiffness, we examined the relationship between human arm joint stiffness and muscle activation during static force control in the horizontal plane by means of surface electromyographic (EMG) studies. Subjects were asked to pr...

STUDY DESIGN In vivo laboratory studies were conducted to investigate the spine loads imposed on men and women during a series of lifting tasks that varied in the degree of lifting control required by the subject. OBJECTIVE To identify and understand differences in spine loading and musculoskeletal control strategies between men and women performing lifts of varying task complexity. SUMMARY...

STUDY DESIGN Two abdominal muscle patterns were tested in the same group of individuals, and their effects were compared in relation to sacroiliac joint laxity. One pattern was contraction of the transversus abdominis, independently of the other abdominals; the other was a bracing action that used all the lateral abdominal muscles. OBJECTIVES To demonstrate the biomechanical effect of the exe...

The neural relationships between eyelid movements and eye movements during spontaneous, voluntary, and reflex blinking in a group of healthy subjects were examined. Electromyographic (EMG) recording of the orbicularis oculi (OO) muscles was performed using surface electrodes. Concurrently, horizontal and vertical eye positions were recorded by means of the double magnetic induction (DMI) ring m...