The Comparison of Iliopsoas Tightness Between Low Back Pain Patients and Healthy Subjects

요통환자와 정상인의 장요근의 긴장 도 비교

Low back pain is often experienced by many people who are in an activity flag. Their work and daily life are affected by low back pain. There are many causes of low back pain. Among those many causes, this study was focused on a relation between low back pain and the tightness of iliopsoas. The study was implemented by measuring the angles of the hip joints in subjects consisting of a 30 patients group, who had been selected from the outpatients at the Median Hospital, and a 30 people control group from the outpatients at the M Hospital and employee of M hospital. The patients group consists of the patients with low back pain who have intermittently or continuously experienced low back pain within the last 6 months. The group also had no symptom of spondylolysis or spondylolithesis and no muscular abnormality in terms of pathology without any experience of disc or spine fusion operation. The control group consisted out of persons who had never experienced lower back pain and had never been subjected to physical therapy due to lower back pain. The hip joint angles of the subjects of this study were measured by means of the modified Thomas test position. Data was analysed by independent sampling t-test using SPSS 11.0. The following results were obtained: 1. The measured angles of patient's both hip joints were significantly smaller than the control group's. 2. In the males group, The angles of patients' both hip joints were smaller than the controls'. In the females group, The angles of patients' both hip joints were smaller than the controls'. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that there is a significant difference in the tightness of the iliopsoas muscles when comparing the patient group with the control group. We should therefore pay more attention in releasing the muscle tightness of iliopsoas muscles when performing physical therapy with patients with lower back pain.