TOWARD A CLINICAL-TEST OF LUMBAR SPINE KINESTHESIA

Poor lumbar spine kinesthetic awareness is often observed in low back pain patients and is usually evaluated qualitatively in the clinical s ituation. The purpose of this study was to investigate a simple, kines thetic test for the lumbar spine. The experimental protocol utilized a 3Space Fastrak(TM) to determine the error, within and between day, of 10 healthy subjects in reproducing a neutral lumbopelvic (T-10-S-2) p osition following movement into flexion. The mean value of the reposit ioning error for the sagittal plane movement (flexion/extension) over the three repetitions within day 1 was 2.6 +/- 1.2 degrees and for day 2 was 2.6 +/- 1.7 degrees. No statistically significant difference ex isted between days. These repositioning errors were well within the ra nges described by other authors for various asymptomatic joint complex es. These results provide a basis for further evaluation of this test on patients with low back pain to investigate its ability to detect an y kinesthetic deficit.