Approximately 79,000 spinal fractures occur annually in the United States. Roughly three out of every four fractures involve either the thoracic or the lumbar spine1,2. The most common site of injury in the thoracic and lumbar spine is the thoracolumbar junction, the mechanical transition zone between the relatively rigid thoracic spine and the more flexible lumbar region3-5. The thoracolumbar ...

Mechanical stability of the lumbar spine is known to have implications for injury and chronic low back pain. Even though this topic is fairly covered by scientific literature, the role of abdominal muscles, in particular the deep once, is often neglected. Especially transverse abdominal (TA) muscle might play privileged role: with mainly transverse muscular fibers, both activated TA muscles com...

BACKGROUND Spinal posture is commonly a focus in the assessment and clinical management of low back pain (LBP) patients. However, the link between spinal posture and LBP is not fully understood. Recent evidence suggests that considering regional, rather than total lumbar spine posture is important. The purpose of this study was to determine; if there are regional differences in habitual lumbar ...

OBJECTIVE To develop and validate an extensive radiographic scoring system for ankylosing spondylitis (AS). METHODS The Stoke Ankylosing Spondylitis Spinal Score (SASSS) was modified by adding a score for the cervical spine and defining squaring. This modified SASSS (mSASSS) is the sum of the lumbar and cervical spine score (range 0-72). 370 lateral views of the lumbar and cervical spine were...

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) along with post-operative syndrome in the lumbar spine shows confusing and duplicated symptoms, and this makes it difficult to make a clear differential diagnosis. Therefore, the patient with post-operative syndrome in the lumbar spine suffers losses of time and money, and the surgeon who diagnoses and treats post-operative syndrome in the lumbar spine also...

The X-Stop device is designed to distract the posterior elements of the stenotic segment and place it in flexion to treat neurogenic claudication. Previous biomechanical studies on X Stop have been done in vitro on cadavers looking at disc pressures and segmental range of movements. The objective of this study is to understand the sagittal kinematics in vivo of the lumbar spine at the instrumen...

CONTEXT: Low bone mineral density (BMD) is a serious public health problem. Osteoporotic fractures are associated with low bone mass, occurring frequently in the hip and spine. Previous studies have demonstrated a positive relationship between BMD and weightbearing exercise but not a similar positive relationship with nonweightbearing exercise. There is concern that cycling, a weight-supported ...

INTRODUCTION Biomechanical studies of spine range of motion (RoM) and electromyography (EMG) typically focus on the lumbar region. The thoracic spine remains a topic less investigated in the literature, especially in terms of complex/relative motion coupled with EMG patterns. Research on complex motion patterns of the thoracic spine is directed towards kinematic measures only [1, 2] and usually...