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Role of intra-abdominal pressure in the unloading and stabilization of the human spine during static lifting tasks

European Spine Journal volume 15, pages 1265–1275 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

The role of intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) in unloading the spine has remained controversial. In the current study, a novel kinematics-based approach along with a nonlinear finite-element model were iteratively used to calculate muscle forces, spinal loads, and stability margin under prescribed postures and loads measured in in vivo studies. Four coactivity levels (none, low, moderate, and high) of abdominal muscles (rectus abdominis, external oblique, and internal oblique) were considered concurrently with a raise in IAP from 0 to 4 kPa when lifting a load of 180 N in upright standing posture and to 9 kPa when lifting the same load in forward trunk flexions of 40° and 65°. For comparison, reference cases with neither abdominal coactivity nor IAP were investigated as well. A raise in IAP unloaded and stabilized the spine when no coactivity was considered in the foregoing abdominal muscles for all lifting tasks regardless of the posture considered. In the upright standing posture, the unloading action of IAP faded away even in the presence of low level of abdominal coactivity while its stabilizing action continued to improve as abdominal coactivity increased to moderate and high levels. For lifting in forward-flexed postures, the unloading action of IAP disappeared only with high level of abdominal coactivities while its stabilizing action deteriorated as abdominal coactivities increased. The unloading and stabilizing actions of IAP, hence, appear to be posture and task specific.

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Acknowledgements

The work is supported by grants from the NSERC-Canada and the IRSST-Québec. The protocol for in vivo measurements was approved by the local ethics committee and all participants signed an informed consent.

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  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, École Polytechnique, Station centre-ville’, , P.O. Box 6079, Montreal, QC, Canada, H3C 3A7

    N. Arjmand & A. Shirazi-Adl

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  1. N. Arjmand
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Arjmand, N., Shirazi-Adl, A. Role of intra-abdominal pressure in the unloading and stabilization of the human spine during static lifting tasks. Eur Spine J 15, 1265–1275 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-005-0012-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-005-0012-9

Keywords

  • Intra-abdominal pressure
  • Abdominal coactivity
  • Finite element method
  • Lifting
  • Stability
  • Compression