The Role of the Rate of Force Application in Responses to Spinal Manipulation Therapy

Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

Status: Completed

Conditions: Spinal Manipulation

Treatments: Device: Apparatus used to deliver spinal manipulations; Procedure: Spinal manipulation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02550132

UQTR-2013-SMTrate

Details and patient eligibility

About

The objective of the present study is to determine if spinal manipulations with a constant rate of force application but with different peak force and time to peak force lead to similar responses in healthy adults.

Full description

Although there are indirect evidences that the rate of force application modulates neuromuscular responses to spinal manipulation therapy (SMT) through peak force or thrust duration modulations, such an assumption remains to be confirmed. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to determine if different SMT force-time profiles where a constant rate of force application would be maintained (through the modulation of the peak force and the time to peak force) lead to similar neuromechanical responses. Based on the available data relative to the effect of SMT biomechanical parameters modulation, it was hypothesized that neuromuscular responses would be similar across SMT force-time profiles, while vertebral displacements would increase as SMT peak force increases.

Enrollment: 25 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 50 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Healthy adult

Exclusion criteria

• Thoracic or lumbar pain
• History of back trauma or surgery
• Severe osteoarthritis
• Inflammatory arthritis
• Vascular conditions
• Contraindication to the use of SMT

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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25 participants in 1 patient group

Participants

Experimental group

Description:

All volunteers will participate in an experimental session. Participants will be delivered four different spinal manipulations (SMT) at T7 with a rate of force application of about 2200 Newtons/seconds and a preload force of 25 Newtons (N). SMTs will differed in their time to peak force (ms) and peak force (N), respectively fixed as follow for each applied SMT: (1)57 ms / 150 N, (2)80 ms / 200 N, (3)102 ms / 250 N and (4)125 ms / 300 N.

Treatment:

Procedure: Spinal manipulation

Device: Apparatus used to deliver spinal manipulations