The Effects of Chiropractic Therapy and Low Back Exercise of University Students in Commuter

카이로프랙틱 요법과 요통 운동 요법이 요추 자세 및 통증 변화에 미치는 영향 비교 - 통학버스 이용 대학생을 대상으로 -

Objectives: The Purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of chiropractic treatment and low back exercise on lumbar lordosis angle, gravity line, range of motion, and pain degree of university students who are taking a commuter bus at least 4 hours of round trip. Methods: A group of 15 participants received chiropractic treatment around the lumbar spine region twice per week for 8 weeks. Another group of 15 participants were treated with low back exercise three times per week for 8 weeks. Results: In the present results, both chiropractic treatment and low back exercise did not affect the change of lumbar lordosis. However, chiropractic treatment also significantly improved the range of the lumbar motion, including Flexion, Extension, Right Lateral Flexion and Left Lateral Flexion(p<0.05), and consequently decreased the pain degree. Low back exercise significantly moved the lumbar gravity line to almost normal scale, and improved the range of the lumbar motion, including Flexion, and Right Lateral Flexion (p<0.05), resulting in the reduction of pain degree, although both chiropractic treatment and exercise treatment did not change the lumbar lordosis angle at the statistically significant. Conclusions: From these results, it can be inferred that chiropractic treatment might be beneficial to alleviating the low back pain of the university students using a commuter bus by improving the range of lumbar motion or stabilizing the lumbar gravity line.