Spinal Kinematics in Chronic Low Back Pain

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is one of the most frequent causes for limitations in daily, leisure and work-related activities. Although alterations in spinal motor behavior were consistently reported in CLBP patients, it remains unclear how improvements in spinal motor behavior through rehabilitation treatment affect pain and disability. Psychological factors, such as pain-related fear, were suggested as a possible main cause of spinal motor behavior in CLBP and better understanding their relationships with kinematic and muscle activity alterations is required to enhance care, particularly physiotherapy. Therefore, this study will test CLBP patients before and after a 3 week rehabilitation program to test the hypotheses that: 1) improvements in spinal motor behavior (kinematics and trunk muscle activity) are associated with decreased pain and disability; 2) decrease in pain-related fear is associated with spinal motor behavior improvements.