An Observational Study on Gluteal Muscle Surface Electromyography and Physical Activity in Male Adults with Non-Specific Low Back Pain

Background: Nonspecific low back pain is defined as a low back pain without a plausible cause alike to that in the European guiding principles. Every year around 15%-45% of adults suffer from low back pain and 5% of people visit hospital with a new episode. Approximately 10%were having work absenteism and about 20% had persistent symptoms for 1 year. Gluteus medius weakness and gluteal muscle tenderness are common symptoms in people with nonspecific LBP .Surface electromyography (sEMG), a measure of muscle activity, allows both a patient and clinician to have direct and immediate access to muscle functioning that is not possible with manual palpation or visual observation. In addition too much or too little physical activity is associated with low back pain.

Objective: To analyze the activity of gluteus maximus and medius with surface EMG among young male adults with nonspecific low back pain. To analyze the correlation between IPAQ and NPRS among young male adults with nonspecific low backpain.

Participants and Methods: This observational study was conducted in six dots health enhancement academy with total of 50 participants. The participants were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The sampling method used is convenient sampling method. The outcome measure used was (sEMG), IPAQ and NPRS.

Results: There is a significant, weakness of right and left gluteus medius. The EMG activity of right and left gluteus medius (R=44.37, L=44.34) indicates the weakness compared to EMG activity of right and left gluteus maximus (R=47.41, L=47.01). There is a significant correlation between NPRS and IPAQ; the p value0.027 which is <0.05.

Conclusion: This observational study results proved that there is a significant difference between EMG activity of gluteus medius and maximus, in which gluteus medius muscles were weaker than gluteus maximus muscles among young male adults. There is a significant correlation between numerical pain rating scale and international physical activity questionnaire, which states that increase in physical activity, can increase severity of pain among young male adults.