IS THERE A LINK BETWEEN SPINE AND HIP MOBILITY?

Abstract

Measurement of spinal range of motion is frequently used objective approach inassessment of patients with low back pain, also because of the ease of use. Althoughemphasized, stretching of hip flexors and extensors is often performed inappropriately. Wehypothesized that subjects with reduced hip mobility will probably compensate with pronouncedspine mobility and that a significant negative correlation exist between these two entities. Fiftyone healthy adults (age 43.7 ± 15.1 years) that are regularly involved in moderate physicalactivity (agility and endurance) participated in this study. Range of motion was measured bymeans of goniometry and adjusted Schober method that were previously shown to be reliablemethods for spine and hip mobility assessment. The correlation between spine movements indifferent anatomical planes and correlation between spine and hip mobility was calculated. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated between pairs of flexibility variables. Contraryto our expectations, analysis revealed absence of the correlation between the flexion of the trunkand flexion of the hip. However, moderate correlations were found between flexibility parametersrelated to trunk movements in different direction. Ranges of motion of the hip and of the trunkgive complementary information and cannot be predicted from one another. Therefore, mobilityof both joints/regions should be evaluated in order to get insightful information about movementfunction of the lumbo-pelvic region either in the context of low back pain or sports performance.

Keywords

• range of motion
• trunk
• hip
• correlation