Comparison of Trunk Proprioception Between Patients With Low Back Pain and Healthy Controls

Objective: To determine whether proprioceptive impairments exist in patients with low back pain (LBP). We hypothesized that patients with LBP would exhibit larger trunk proprioception errors than healthy controls.

Design: Case-control study.

Setting: University laboratory.

Participants: 24 patients with nonspecific LBP and 24 age-matched healthy controls.

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main outcome measures: We measured trunk proprioception in all 3 anatomical planes using motion perception threshold, active repositioning, and passive repositioning tests.

Results: LBP patients had significantly greater motion perception threshold than controls (P<.001) (1.3+/-0.9 degrees vs 0.8+/-0.6 degrees ). Furthermore, all subjects had the largest motion perception threshold in the transverse plane (P<.001) (1.2+/-0.7 degrees vs 1.0+/-0.8 degrees for all other planes averaged). There was no significant difference between LBP and healthy control groups in the repositioning tasks. Errors in the active repositioning test were significantly smaller than in the passive repositioning test (P=.032) (1.9+/-1.2 degrees vs 2.3+/-1.4 degrees ).

Conclusions: These findings suggest that impairments in proprioception may be detected in patients with LBP when assessed with a motion perception threshold measure.