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Investigation of the Putative Correlation Between Involuntary Psoas Activity During Passive Flexion of the Trunk at the Hips

The Putative Correlation Between Impaired Hip Flexor Passivity and Common Lower Back Pain: a Pilot Study.

Status
Completed
Phases
Phase 4
Study type
Interventional
Source
ClinicalTrials.gov
Registry ID
NCT02335047
Enrollment
90
Registered
2015-01-09
Start date
2015-01-31
Completion date
2015-02-28
Last updated
2015-10-02

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Lower Back Pain

Keywords

reliability, clinical test, physical therapy

Brief summary

Passive flexion of the trunk (relative to the legs) may be accompanied by contraction of the psoas muscles, even when the subject has been told not to contract any muscles. The psoas contraction is involuntary and cannot be controlled by the subject. This lack of passivity might be concomitant with lower back pain: the impairment may be present when lower back pain is present and/or absent when lower back pain is absent. The study's primary objective is thus to determine the sensitivity and/or specificity of a clinical test for impaired hip flexor passivity in cases of lower back pain during passive flexion of the trunk (from the supine position,). The secondary objective is to show that a negative test (after administration of correcting measures) is correlated with a decrease in pain (i.e. pain intensity and the functional repercussions of pain).

Interventions

OTHERImpaired passivity test

Description of the test: the subject lies in the supine position on an exercise mat with his/her feet together. The subject is told to let his/her arms rest loosely by his/her side (as if they were ropes) and to keep the head aligned with the back. The examiner pulls the subject into the sitting position by pulling on the subject's wrists, with passive flexion of the trunk until the hip joint is fully flexed..

Sponsors

University Hospital, Strasbourg, France
Lead SponsorOTHER

Study design

Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE

Eligibility

Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 30 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes

Inclusion criteria

* Age between 18 and 30 * Social security coverage * Ability to understand the study's objectives, procedures and risks and to provide informed, written consent * Having been informed about the results of the prior clinical examination.

Exclusion criteria

* Past or concomitant infectious or cancerous diseases of the spine * Vertebral osteosynthesis * Acute neck or arm pain (recurrent dislocations of the glenohumeral joint, trauma in the previous 12 months, etc.) * Lower back pain with irradiation of pain below the buttocks * Known specific lower back pain or pain for which a differential diagnosis suggests an inflammatory, traumatic, cancerous or infectious cause * Subjects under legal guardianship * Known pregnancy * Simultaneous participation in another biomedical research study of a drug or medical device.

Design outcomes

Primary

MeasureTime frame
Qualitative evaluation of impaired psoas muscle passivity during passive flexion of the trunk at the hips (while sitting).Visit 1 (Day 0)

Secondary

MeasureTime frame
- A visual analog scale for pain- Visit 0 (Day 0: inclusion visit)

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026