Mitchell K, et al. – This cross–sectional study was conducted to ascertain if there were differences in lumbar spine and lower extremity kinematics in people with and without low back pain (LBP) during a step–up task. In the sagittal plane, people with LBP demonstrated less lower lumbar spine motion and more out–of–plane lower extremity motion. Clinically, to develop more focused functional interventions for patients with LBP, the step–up task could be used to identify these aberrant movements.

• The authors enrolled a convenience sample of 37 participants including 19 with LBP and 18 without a history of LBP.
• For this study, all participants were between the ages of 18 and 65.
• Based on age, gender and BMI, controls were matched to participants with LBP.
• They used a motion capture system to record spine and lower extremity kinematics during the step-up task.
• They used ANOVA tests to determine differences in three-dimensional kinematics between groups.

• Compared to controls, participants with LBP showed less lower lumbar motion in the sagittal plane (P = 0.001), more knee motion in the coronal plane (P = 0.001), and more lower extremity motion in the axial plane (P = 0.002).