ArticleGait & posture2025
Effects of age/gender profiles and physical activity level on symmetry of lumbar muscle activation in pain-free older adults during various spinal movements.
Article in Gait & posture, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Segmental asymmetry and multiplanar motion of the lumbar spine: Cadaveric insights into spinal pathologies.Journal of the mechanical behavior of biomedical materials · 2026Article
- Effects of Age and Muscle Activation on Three-Dimensional Spine Kinematics and Asymmetry in Elderly Adults.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundBack muscles simultaneously drive spinal movements and stabilize the trunk. Paraspinal muscle activity is presumed to be symmetric and gender-insensitive, and more activated with aging to protect the spine during functional tasks. RESEARCH QUESTION: Does over-activated and asymmetric behaviors exist in the pain-free elderly population which is affected by their physical activity levels?
methodsForty healthy participants (aged 64.8 ± 9.9 years, 20 males and 20 females) were recruited for this cross-sectional study. They completed the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) to quantify their self-reported physical activity measures including the total physical activity in MET-min/week and time spent sitting. Surface electromyographic activity of bilateral paraspinal muscles at L3 level was measured. Subjects were instructed to perform functional tasks including symmetric movements as well as right- and left-side rotation/bending. Asymmetry in muscle activation between the two sides was calculated. A multiple linear regression model was used to assess the association of muscle activations with age and gender. Pearson correlation analysis was used to verify the relationship between the asymmetry and physical activity measures. RESULTS AND SIGNIFICANCE: The results showed a downtrend of paraspinal muscle activations with aging and the decreasing rate could differ between genders. Left-side muscle activations were generally higher than those of the right-side muscles. Muscle asymmetrical activation correlated with sitting time but not total physical activity. This study highlighted aging and gender effects on the paraspinal muscle activations as well as muscle imbalance during different movement paradigms. Future work is needed to verify the underlying mechanism for declining and asymmetrical muscle activation and its link to back disorders.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.