Background

It is known that the patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) has different spatiotemporal characteristics than healthy controls such as average speed, cadence, step and stride length parameters. CLBP is a heterogeneous phenomenon in terms of causing various level of disability.

Research question

Does disability levels make a difference on spatiotemporal characteristics of patients with CLBP?

Methods

66 patients with CLBP and 32 healthy controls between the ages of 25 and 65 years participated to study. The patients who had neurological, orthopedic, cardiovascular, metastatic history excluded from study. Resting, activity and night pain and functional disability were evaluated with Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) respectively. The patients were divided into three groups according to their disability level: mild-moderate and severe. Gait analyses were performed with Optogait treadmill-based photocell system (Version 1.6.4.0, Microgate, Bolzano, Italy). After two trials were done, the spatiotemporal characteristics recorded for one minute while patients walked their preferred speed on the treadmill. One-way ANOVA was used to compare these parameters among the perceived disability level (mild, moderate, severe, and healthy).The level of significance was accepted as 0.05.

Results

Step length, stride length, and preferred walking speed were the parameters that differentiate the gait between healthy controls and patients with CLBP (p < 0.05). According to post-hoc analyses, moderate CLBP was identified as the group most different from the healthy controls (p < 0.05).

Significance

Results of this study describe how compensating mechanism were seen in CLBP subgroups. As opposed to expectations, an increase in disability would not create higher difference in spatiotemporal characteristics between healthy controls and patients with severe disability. We propose that patients with severe and moderate disability had different ways to normalize their gait.

中文翻译：

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中度残疾对慢性下腰痛患者的时空参数具有负面影响。

背景

众所周知，慢性腰背痛（CLBP）患者的时空特征与健康对照者不同，例如平均速度，节奏，步幅和步幅参数。就造成各种程度的残疾而言，CLBP是一种异质性现象。

研究问题

残疾水平是否会影响CLBP患者的时空特征？

方法

66位CLBP患者和32位年龄在25至65岁之间的健康对照者参加了研究。具有神经，骨科，心血管，转移史的患者被排除在研究之外。分别使用视觉模拟量表（VAS），Oswestry残疾指数（ODI）评估休息，活动和夜间疼痛以及功能障碍。根据残疾程度将患者分为三组：轻度中度和重度。使用基于Optogait跑步机的光电管系统（1.6.4.0版，Microgate，意大利博尔扎诺，意大利）进行步态分析。经过两项试验后，患者在跑步机上以自己喜欢的速度行走时，记录了一分钟的时空特征。单向方差分析用于比较感觉到的残疾水平（轻度，中度，重度，

结果

步长，步幅和首选步行速度是区分健康对照组和CLBP患者步态的参数（p <0.05）。根据事后分析，中度CLBP被确定为与健康对照组最不同的组（p <0.05）。

意义

这项研究的结果描述了如何在CLBP亚组中观察到补偿机制。与预期相反，残疾的增加不会在健康对照组和严重残疾的患者之间造成时空特征的更大差异。我们建议患有重度和中度残疾的患者有不同的步态正常化方法。