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Influence of body position and axial load on spinal stiffness in healthy young adults

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aimed at investigating the effects of different body positions and axial loads on spinal stiffness to better understand spinal stabilisation mechanisms.

Methods

The posterior-to-anterior lumbar and thoracic spinal stiffness of 100 young healthy adults (mean age 23 years; 50 females) were measured in three test situations: prone, standing and standing while carrying a load equal to 50% of the subject’s body weight. Each test situation comprised three trials.

Results

Spinal stiffness in all test situations showed good reliability. Repeated measures analysis of covariance showed significantly higher spinal stiffness in standing than in the prone position [F(1/1694) = 433.630, p < 0.001]. However, spinal stiffness was significantly lower when standing while carrying a load of 50% of the body weight than when standing without additional load [F(1/1494) = 754.358, p < 0.001].

Conclusion

This study showed that spinal lumbar and thoracic stiffness increases when body position is changed from prone to standing. Additional axial load of 50% of the subject’s body weight results in reduced spinal stiffness during standing.

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Funding

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Author notes

  1. Melanie Häusler and Léonie Hofstetter contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Integrative Spinal Research ISR, Department of Chiropractic Medicine, Balgrist University Hospital, Balgrist Campus, Lengghalde 5, 8008, Zurich, Switzerland

    Melanie Häusler, Léonie Hofstetter, Petra Schweinhardt & Jaap Swanenburg

Authors
  1. Melanie Häusler
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  2. Léonie Hofstetter
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  3. Petra Schweinhardt
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  4. Jaap Swanenburg
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jaap Swanenburg.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The ethics committee of the Canton of Zurich approved this study (BASEC-Nr: 2017–01245). It was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier: NCT03495843).

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Häusler, M., Hofstetter, L., Schweinhardt, P. et al. Influence of body position and axial load on spinal stiffness in healthy young adults. Eur Spine J 29, 455–461 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-019-06254-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-019-06254-0

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