Effects of shoulder translation on lumbar moment for two dimensional modeling strategies during lifting

The objectives of this study were to: 1) develop a dynamic 2D link segment model for lifting using the constraints of four sensors from an electromagnetic motion analysis system; 2) evaluate the magnitude of shoulder movement in the sagittal plane during lifting; and 3) investigate the effect of shoulder translation on trunk acceleration and lumbar moments calculated by the developed model and comparing it with two separate 2D dynamic link segment models. Six women and six men lifted loads of 2 kg, 7 kg, 12 kg and 2 kg, 12 kg, 22 kg respectively, under stoop, squat and freestyle conditions. Trunk orientation and position, as well as shoulder position were monitored during all lifts using the Polhemus FASTRAK\trdmk. Results indicated that average range of motion was 0.05 ± 0.02 m in the horizontal direction and 0.03 ± 0.02 m in the vertical direction. Shoulder position relative to T1 was located 0.07 ± 0.02 m anteriorly, and 0.02 ± 0.04 m superiorly (0.06 and 0.00 m for males and 0.08 and 0.04 m for females, respectively). To estimate the effect of shoulder motion on trunk acceleration and L5/S1 moments, three two-dimensional dynamic link segment models were developed within the constraints of the electromagnetic tracking system and compared. Trunk segment endpoints were defined as L5/S1 and either T1 or shoulder depending on model type. For trunk accelerations, average differences between models were greater than 40 deg/s² in 70.4% trunk accelerations did not translate into significantly different moment calculations between models. Average peak dynamic L5/S1 moment differences between models were smaller than 4 Nm for all lifting conditions which failed to be statistically significant (p>0.05). The model type did not have a statistically significant effect on peak L5/S1 moments. Therefore, despite important shoulder joint translations, peak L5/S1 moments were not significantly affected.