A previous review concluded that postural sway is increased in patients with low back pain ( LBP ) .
In a minority of studies , a decreased sway was found in LBP patients .
There were no systematic differences between studies finding an effect and those reporting no effect of LBP .
The proportion of studies finding between-group differences did not increase with increased complexity of sensory manipulations .
However , more detailed analysis of the literature shows that postural deficit may be dependent on experimental conditions in which patients with LBP have been assessed .
The research question to be answered in this review was : " Is there any difference in postural sway between subjects with and without LBP across several sensory manipulation conditions ? " .
Is there a relationship between pain intensity and postural sway in patients with non-specific low back pain?
Background Increased center of pressure excursions are well documented in patients suffering from non-specific low back pain , whereby the altered postural sway includes both higher mean sway velocities and larger sway area . No investigation has been conducted to evaluate a relationship between pain intensity and postural sway in adults ( aged 50 or less ) with non-specific low back pain . Methods Seventy-seven patients with non-specific low back pain and a matching number of healthy controls were enrolled .  Center of pressure parameters were measured by three static bipedal st and ing tasks of 90 sec duration with eyes closed in narrow stance on a firm surface . The perceived pain intensity was assessed by a numeric rating scale ( NRS-11 ) , an equal number of patients ( n = 11 ) was enrolled per pain score . Results Generally , our results confirmed increased postural instability in pain sufferers compared to healthy controls . In addition , regression analysis revealed a significant and linear increase in postural sway with higher pain ratings for all included COP parameters . Statistically significant changes in mean sway velocity in antero-posterior and medio-lateral direction and sway area were reached with an incremental change in NRS scores of two to three points . Conclusions COP mean velocity and sway area are closely related to self-reported pain scores . This relationship may be of clinical use as an objective monitoring tool for patients under treatment or rehabilitation
A previous review concluded that postural sway is increased in patients with low back pain ( LBP ) .
In a minority of studies , a decreased sway was found in LBP patients .
There were no systematic differences between studies finding an effect and those reporting no effect of LBP .
The proportion of studies finding between-group differences did not increase with increased complexity of sensory manipulations .
However , more detailed analysis of the literature shows that postural deficit may be dependent on experimental conditions in which patients with LBP have been assessed .
The research question to be answered in this review was : " Is there any difference in postural sway between subjects with and without LBP across several sensory manipulation conditions ? " .