A Study of the Electrical Properties of the Low Back Muscles of Low Back Pain Patients

• Main Authors: Yungtsungyang, 楊詠琮
• Other Authors: TSChing
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/59173682167902021595

碩士 === 亞洲大學 === 光電與通訊學系碩士班 === 97 === Low back pain is a common ailment, affecting people of all backgrounds and resulting in the loss of more working days than any other single medical condition. Some 60–80% of the global population experience low back pain during their lifetime. In Taiwan more than 2.14 million patients sought medical care for back pain in 1998 and that medical cost alone exceeded 3 billion New Taiwan Dollars. The aim of this study was to study the physiological changes of low back muscles of low back pain patients in order to develop a new approach, namely bioimpedance, for reliable, low-cost, non-invasive, and real-time diagnosis of muscle-related low back pain. Nine normal subjects and Nine patients (11 men and 7 women, age range 20-60) participated in this study. A precision impedance analyzer (Wayne Kerr 6420C) was used for all impedance measurements. Measurements were performed at seven frequencies of 20Hz, 25KHz, 50KHz, 200KHz, 800KHz, 3.2MHz and 10MHz, with the amplitude of the applied voltage limited to 200mV. Impedance, phase angle, real part of impedance, and imaginary part of impedance were assessed to see if significant difference in values obtained in normal and patient low back muscle existed. It was found that the normalized impedance of the low back muscle of the normal group was significant greater than that of low back pain patient group at the frequencies of 800KHz and 3.2MHz. In conclusion, bioimpedance at a particular frequency is a potentially promising technique for the diagnosis of muscle-related low back pain.