The Amount and Temporal Structure of Center of Pressure Fluctuations During Quiet Standing in Patients With Chronic Low Back Pain

Abstract

The characteristics of postural sway were assessed in quiet standing under three different postural task conditions in 14 patients with nonspecific chronic low back pain and 12 healthy subjects using linear and nonlinear center of pressure parameters. The linear parameters consisted of area, the mean total velocity, sway amplitude, the SD of velocity, and the phase plane portrait. The nonlinear parameters included the Lyapunov exponent, sample entropy, and the correlation dimension. The results showed that the amount of postural sway was higher in the patients with low back pain compared with the healthy subjects. Assessing the nonlinear parameters of the center of pressure showed a lower sample entropy and a higher correlation dimension in the patients with low back pain compared with the healthy subjects. The results of this study demonstrate the greater regularity and higher dimensionality of the center of pressure fluctuations in patients with nonspecific chronic low back pain, which suggests that these patients adopt different postural control strategies to maintain an upright stance.