Multi-joint protective effects of lumbar brace on lumbar, hip, knee, and ankle in parachute landing with backpack load

This study aimed to evaluate multi-joints protective effects of the lumbar brace on lumbar and lower limb joints in parachuting landing with the backpack load. Seven participants landed from a 120 cm height platform without and with a lumbar brace and without and with a 5-kg backpack load, respectively. Infrared makers were pasted on trunk, pelvis, and lower limb in order to build a multi-rigid-body model for calculating kinematic and kinetic parameters. The joint angular displacements of lumbar and ankle and the peak vertical ground reaction force were significantly decreased from 29.2  ± 9.2°, 45.2 ± 7.8°, and 14.7 ± 2.0 bodyweight to 21.6 ± 4.9° (p <  0.05), 39.0 ± 10.1° (p <  0.05) and 10.7 ± 1.3 bodyweight (p <  0.05) respectively by the lumbar brace with no backpack load, and the joint angular displacement of hip was significantly increased from 52.6 ± 7.2° to 68.3 ± 12.5° (p <  0.05). The joint angular displacement of lumbar and ankle were significantly decreased from 29.0 ± 5.0° and 53.8 ± 5.1° to 25.1 ± 5.2° (p <  0.05) and 48.5 ± 2.5° (p <  0.05) respectively by the lumbar brace with the backpack load, and the joint angular displacement of hip and knee were significantly increased from 60.1 ± 8.2° and 110.1 ± 9.3° to 69.7 ± 13.2° (p <  0.05) and 116.8 ± 5.8° (p <  0.05), respectively. The lumbar brace could provide the...
Source: Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing - Category: Biomedical Engineering Source Type: research