Figure 1.
Epionics SPINE system with schematic positions of bending sensor segments (blue) and acceleration sensors (red), (left). A schematic display of the definition of angle α is shown for a single exemplary bending sensor segment (right).
Figure 2.
Exemplary mean curvature of lordosis angle versus time for one volunteer during a flexion (left) and extension exercise (right). The grey area represents one standard deviation of repeated movements.
Figure 3.
Maximum lordosis angle velocities during flexion and extension.
Means and standard deviations of the maximum reached lordosis angle velocities at descending and ascending movement during maximum flexion and extension for all volunteers. Significant differences (* p<0.05) appear between flexion descending-ascending, extension descending-ascending, flexion descending-extension descending, and flexion ascending-extension ascending.
Figure 4.
Influence of age and gender on maximum lordosis angle velocity.
Means and standard deviations of the maximum lordosis angle velocities during the descending movement into maximum flexion (top) and extension (bottom), displayed according to age and gender. An asterisk (*) indicates statistical significance at the 5% level.
Figure 5.
Lordosis angle versus velocity of lordosis angle.
Averaged lordosis angle, normalized to the upright standing lordosis, versus the velocity of lordosis angle for extension (left) and flexion (right) depending on age. All figures progress in a clockwise direction. The grey area represents one standard deviation.
Table 1.
Means of range of motion (RoM) and range of functional kinematics (RoKs) for flexion and extension dependent upon age grouping.
Table 2.
Results of the ANCOVA analysis showing the importance of age, gender, body mass index (BMI), height, and weight in determining the maximum velocities during flexion and extension exercises, bold values indicate statistical significance at p<0.05.
Table 3.
Results of the two-way ANOVA analysis showing the interaction effects of different velocity measures.