Comparing Pain Severity and Functional Status of Older Adults without Spinal Symptoms, with Lumbar Spinal Stenosis, and with Axial Low Back Pain
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Functional status has been quantified in the adult low back pain (LBP) population, but has not been characterized for older adults with spinal symptoms. OBJECTIVES: To compare pain severity and functional status of older adults with and without spinal symptoms, and to determine what factors are associated with quality of life in the spinal stenosis and axial LBP groups. METHODS: In 24 subjects greater than 55-years old with lumbar spinal stenosis, 12 with LBP, and 12 without spinal symptoms, obtain the following: pain severity with 10-cm visual analog scale (VAS), 15-minute walk test, 7-day walking distance, Quebec Back Pain Disability Scale (QBPDS), and Pain Disability Index (PDI). RESULTS: The mean scores were worst for the stenosis group, were intermediate for the LBP group, and were the best for the asymptomatic group. Analysis of variance showed that the pain VAS (p < 0.001), 15-minute walk test (p = 0.01), 7-day walk (p = 0.02), QBPDS (p < 0.001), and PDI (p < 0.001) were different between at least two groups. All the variables in the stenosis group were worse than in the asymptomatic group, but only the pain VAS, QBPDS, and PDI in the LBP group were worse than in the asymptomatic group. In both the stenosis and LBP group the QBPDS and PDI were only related to pain VAS. CONCLUSION: Seniors with spinal stenosis and LBP have more disability than asymptomatic seniors. The 15-minute walking test with the stenosis group was slower than with the asymptomatic seniors. However, they compensate so that their 7-day walking distance is not as significantly decreased.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".