NCT06944730

Movement Quality and Balance Improvement in People With Chronic Low Back Pain Following Trunk Muscle Training

Trunk and Lower Limb Movement Quality and Stability Improvement in People With Chronic Low Back Pain Following Different Types of Isometric Trunk Muscle Training

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 60 (estimated)
• Sponsor: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 55 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The goal of this project is to assess if Chronic Low Back Pain (CLBP) participant's movement quality and balance variables can change after training that decreases their pain and disability. It will also compare the difference between structural exercise (SE) and isolated trunk exercise (ITE). The main questions it aims to answer are: 1. What are the effect of the training on the participant's movement quality and balance. 2. What are the difference between different types of trunk muscle training on people with CLBP. Researchers will compare SE, ITE and control. Control group will receive back school education that was shown not to be effective in reducing pain and disability. Participants will: 1. Do home and in-lab based SE or ITE training, or maintain active daily living over 2 months. 2. Complete the pain and disability questionnaire and do several physical functioning tests while having their trunk and lower limb movement and muscle activation measured.

Detailed description

Both ITE and SE training are equalized in terms of training intensity based on rate of perceived exertion, training duration per session, training frequency, and intervention period. Training intensity measurement does not use other methods of quantification as ITE training does not increase heart rate or blood lactate significantly regardless of the intensity.

Conditions

• Chronic Low Back Pain (CLBP)

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Structural Exercise	Multi-joint limb movement with force vector through the spine. The spine is held at neutral position
BEHAVIORAL	Isolated Trunk Exercise	Holding the spine in neutral position with no limb movement, with static loading through the spine
BEHAVIORAL	Back school	Patient education that has been proven to not be effective and has been used as control in past low back pain intervention studies

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-06-01
• Primary completion: 2025-11-30
• Completion: 2025-11-30
• First posted: 2025-04-25
• Last updated: 2025-04-25

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Hong Kong