---

Background and aim: Proprioception is a main component of somatosensory system that plays a protective role in acute injuries through reflex muscular splinting. Proprioception reduction could be a source of deficits in reaction time, postural control and postural stability. In chronic low back pain  patients (CLBP) the proprioception is decreased and leads to dysfunction in motor control and increased the risk of injury. Evaluation the repositioning of lumbar region could be an indication to measure the lumbar proprioception . The purpose of this study was to compare the lumbar repositioning in CLBP and healthy females. 

Material and Methods: Eighteen CLBP (22.83 ± 2.93 years) and 18 healthy females (23.33 ± 2.19 years) participated in this study. Lumbar repositioning error in 30% and 60% of lumbar full flexion and neutral position with closed eye in standing was evaluated with electrogoniometer. Absolute and constant error for 3 repositioning points were obtained and analyzed.

Results: Absolute error in patients with low back pain was significantly higher than control subjects in all 3 position points (P<0.05). Constant error did not show significant difference between two groups. (P>0.05)

Conclusion: Increased in absolute error of females with CLBP in lumbar repositioning implies that some aspects of proprioception may lose in patients with CLBP.

---

Background and Aim: More recently, attention has turned to the role of proximal structures in function of lower limb. Decreased lumbo-pelvic (or core) stability has been suggested to contribute to the etiology of lower extremity sport injuries. This is largely due to the closed chain nature of athletic activities. Groin pain is a common complaint for athletes participating in sports such as soccer. Adductor-related groin pain was the most common primary entity in soccer players. Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare of core stability between male soccer players with and without hip adductors strain. Various studies have been done for treatment and prevention of recurrent of this lesion and the most important thing in these studies was to keep the integrity of  the core stability.
Materials and Methods: Fifty professional soccer players (25 healthy and 25 with adductors strain. mean age: 21.32±2.73) was studied. Core stability was compared among them by 5 endurance and functional tests. Endurance of back extensors, trunk flexors and lateral flexors were tested by Modified Biering-Sorensen and Mc.Gilltests.In current research, the Double Leg Lowering test is applied to measure the function of the oblique abdominals muscles and the Single Leg Squat test is applied to measure the function of hip abductor and external rotators muscles.
Results: Endurance of back extensors, flexors and lateral flexors were significantly lower in the injured soccer players in comparison with the healthy players. Significant decrease in the function of oblique abdominal muscles, hip abductor and external rotator muscles were founded in the injured players (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Decrease of endurance and function in the trunk muscles is probably an important risk factor for hip adductors strain injuries in the soccer players. Increasing the endurance of the core muscles can be reduced the occurrence of hip addactors strain. 

---

Background and Aim: Many studies investigated the effect of ankle-foot orthosis on reducing the incidence of sprain. In this study the influence of elastic and semirigid stirrup type orthosis on the onset latency of peroneus longus muscle activity as the most important support of ankle- foot region in response to sudden perturbation was assessed in healthy group and athletes with functional ankle instability.

 

Materials and Methods: Thirteen healthy female athletes and 10 female athletes with functional ankle instability (17 to 27 years old) were perturbed unexpectedly by a custom made ankle perturbation system in frontal plane under three conditions of without orthotics, using elastic orthosis, and using semirigid stirrup-type orthosis. Simultaneous recording of electrical activity of peronus longus muscle was performed with surface electromyography.

 

Results: The results showed the significant differences between muscular latency of injured and control groups without orthosis (P=0.018). The onset latency reduced using each type of the orthoses in injured group but it was not significant (P>0.05).

 

Conclusion: Although the latency time of peroneus longus muscle response delay didn’t show significant reduction using orthoses in injured group, it seems that using orthoses leads to proprioception improvement and sensiomotor control increasement by stimulation of cutaneous mechanoreceptors.

 

Key words: Functional ankle instability, Invertory perturbation, Electromyography, Orthosis

---

Background and Aim: The curves of the spine, especially lumbar lordosis, play an important role in the maintenance of an efficient upright posture and allow efficient absorption of the loads applied to the spinal column and increase the efficiency of the spinal musculature. Excessive lumbar postures, also called “hyperlordosis” and “hypolordosis” , are thought by some researchers to be indicative of altered muscle activity and stress patterns. Therefore tolerance of particular activities of daily living (ADL) of an individual with these postures is reduced. Despite the importance of neuromuscular control at spinal column maintenance and coordination, there are little investigations about the effect of thoracic and lumbar curvatures on trunk muscles activity. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate electromyographic behavior of trunk muscles in lordotic posture.

  

Materials and Methods: Twelve subjects with lordotic posture ( mean age 23.67 years, mean weight 56.67 kg, and mean height 162 cm) and eleven subjects with normal posture ( mean age 22 years, mean weight 59.36 kg, and mean height 164.91 cm) participated in this study. Subjects were asked to hold a load equivalent of 7% of her body weight.

  

Results: Data analysis indicated that there is not significant statistically difference in median frequency variable between two groups (p>0.05). But there is significant statistically differences at The percentage change in RMS of erector spinae and internal oblique muscles at three time periods between two groups. The percentage change in RMS of external oblique muscle has significant statistically difference at first and third time periods between two groups.

  

Conclusion: These finding reveal that excessive lumbar lordosis alter the activity levels of trunk muscles. Therefore, it seems that the use of posture correction exercises in therapeutic protocols is necessary for improvement of these changes. Also, it is recommended to do this research in dynamic tasks for attain of comprehensive information about the effect of postural deviation on electromyographic behavior of trunk muscles.

  

Keywords: Electromyography, Hyperlordosis, Posture, Prolonged load holding

  

  ^* Corresponding Author: Dr.AzadehShadmehr, Rehabilitation Faculty, Tehran University of Medical Sciences

---

Background and Aim: Proprioception is a component of somatosensory system. One of the most important somatosensory receptors is muscle spindles. Neck area with high density of muscle spindle, plays a significant role in providing this sense. With repeated contact sports, with high trauma on head and neck region, it is likely that proprioception will be impaired. The present study was conducted to compare proprioception between wrestlers, taekwondo players and non-athlete subjects to determine the effect of trauma on proprioception of craniocervical region.

 

Material and Methods: This study was a case-control study of 75 male with the age range of 18-30 years (Including: 25 professional wrestlers, 25 professional taekwondo players and 25 non-athlete subjects). Participants were selected through simple non-probability sampling. To assess proprioception of craniocervical region, angular repositioning of two positions (neutral and 50% of range of motion) was evaluated by using the cervical range of motion device (CROM device). The statistical method which used in this study was one way ANOVA.

 

Results: Accuracy of target repositioning (50% of range of motion) of extension, right and left rotation were significantly different between three groups (p<0.05). Returning to neutral position from mentioned movement was associated with a significant error (p<0.05).

 

Conclusion: It is assumed that proprioception of craniocervical region has been affected by trauma in wrestlers and taekwondo players, so that the accuracy of head repositioning for both neutral and target positions were reduced in wrestlers. However, taekwondo players had more errors in repositioning of target angle.

 

Keywords: Proprioception, Repositioning error, Craniocervical, Wrestlers, Taekwondo players

---

Background and Aim:  The aim of this study was to determine the short-term and long-term effects of one protocol of physiotherapy on reduction of pain, improve active lumbar range of motion and disability in the patients with chronic lumbar radicular pain.

Materials and Methods: A total of 12 patients with lumbar radiculopathy were included in this study. Physical therapy included electrical nerve stimulation at sensory level, superficial heat and therapeutic exercise for patients. Pain intensity of lumbar and affected lower extremity, active lumbar range of motion and disability were considered as variables in this study. The evaluation was performed 6 months after the end of therapy sessions. The repeated measure of ANOVA was used to assess the effect of physiotherapy and pair t-test was used to assess the follow-up.

Result: Statistically significant differences were found in lumbar pain, affected lower extremity, active lumbar flexion, right and left lateral flexion and disability after treatment (p<0.05). No statistically significant differences were found in lumbar pain, affected lower extremity , active lumbar right and left lateral flexion in the last session of treatment and 6 month later (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Physiotherapy is an effective treatment in order to reduce pain and improve active lumbar range of motion in patients with lumbar radicular pain.

Keywords:  Physiotherapy, Radicular pain, Range of motion, Disability

---

Background and Aim: Forward Head Posture (FHP) is one of the most common postural disorders which related to current life style. This disorder may cause some changes in motor control of cervical muscles.

 

Materials and Methods: Eight subjects with Forward Head Posture and 8 matched healthy subjects wereParticipated. The kinematic and electromyographic activity of each subject was analyzed and the flexion- Relaxation phenomenon was determined.

 

Results: The results showed that the cessation of flexion-relaxation phenomenon was different between two groups (P<0.05). The result of Pearson correlation showed a significant positive correlation between Cranio-vertebral angle and cessation of the phenomenon (P<0.05).

 

Conclusion: The flexion- relaxation phenomenon was different in Forward Head Posture related to the healthy subjects and the concentric contraction was started with delay in the Forward Head Posture subjects. Therefore, the motor control and balance disorder may be seen in these subjects.

 

Keywords: Forward Head Posture, Flexion- Relaxation, Electromyography, Kinematic

---

Background and Aim: Rotator cuff tendon rupture is the most frequent cause of shoulder pain and disability, especially in middle and old age. Physiotherapy is known as non-surgical or conservative treatment for it. The goal of this research was to investigate the effect of physiotherapy treatment in full-thickness tear of Supraspinatus tendon on shoulder pain and shoulder active range of motion.

Materials and Methods: In this before and after clinical trial, 17 patients (5 men and 12 women) with average age of 54.35±7.13 years old whom had full-thickness tear of Supraspinatus tendon were treated within 30 physiotherapy clinical sessions. The physiotherapy protocol for patients was included of heat, ultrasound and electrical stimulations modules and exercise therapy program was consisted of three components of stretching, strengthening and endurance. Patients in the first, twentieth and at the end of the thirtieth session were evaluated for pain and range of motion. Pain variable by visual analogue scale and range of motion variable by goniometer were evaluated.

Results: Within subjects ANOVA (parametric) and Friedman (nonparametric) tests showed a significant difference in pain and range of motion between before and after physiotherapy (P <0.01).

Conclusions: This study showed that physiotherapy may reduce pain and improve range of motion of shoulder in surgery candidate patients with full-thickness tear of Supraspinatus tendon and decrease client needs to surgery. However, studies with longer follow-up are recommended to evaluate this outcome.

Keywords: Supraspinatus tendon tears, Physiotherapy, Pain, Range of motion, Visual analogue scale, Goniometer