Intermuscular Coherence as a promising indicator of fatigue or low back pain?

GEREZ, GONZALO DANIEL; CANO, LEONARDO ARIEL; ESCOBAR, FRANCISCO; FREIRE, EDUARDO; GARCÍA, MARÍA SOLEDAD; PARAJÓN VÍSCIDO, MANUEL

Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires

Congreso; XXIV Argentinian Congress of Bioengineering (SABI 2023) and the XIII Clinical Engineering Conference; 2023

Sociedad Argentina de Bioingeniería

The complex functioning of the trunk musculature, its relationship with low back pain, and its behavior under conditions of fatigue have been widely studied. Subjects with low back pain have been shown to be more prone to fatigue, and at the same time, fatigue has been proposed as a predictor of low back pain. Efforts to find valid and reliable biomarkers to explain the functioning of the trunk muscle complex have materialized in various experimental studies. The aim of this study was to analyze the behavior of the lumbar musculature in healthy subjects and in a subject with a history of low back pain. Participants performed a barbell squat protocol with a load equivalent to 60% of their body weight. The intermuscular coherence (IMC) of the Multifidus muscles was analyzed during the concentric phase of the exercise. The results showed that the IMC in control subjects decreased during the execution of the squat series, while the IMC in the subject with a history of low back pain exhibited an inverse behavior. The results showed certain inconsistencies with the previous findings, and due to the variability of methods and protocols, it is not possible to make direct comparisons of our study with those available in the literature. However, this study provides evidence regarding the use of IMC for the characterization of fatigue and low back pain.