P02.91. The effect of a standardized massage application on spinal stiffness in asymptomatic subjects
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Asymptomatic subjects were randomized to an experimental group (n=20) that received lumbar spine massage or a control group (n=18) that did not receive massage but read quietly. To standardize massage application in experimental subjects, a mechanical device was used with application pressure determined by the subject’s comfort level. Spinal stiffness was measured at the third lumbar vertebra using a validated indentation device. Pre- and post- massage stiffness values were compared using a Generalized Linear Model (alpha = 0.05). Our analysis revealed no statistically significant difference in lumbar stiffness measures between subjects who received massage and those who did not (p > 0.05). In asymptomatic subjects, spinal stiffness did not change significantly in subjects who received a standardized mechanical massage compared to subjects where massage was withheld. This observation is consistent with other studies that have reported an absence of change in spinal stiffness following interventions applied in asymptomatic subjects (e.g. manipulation). Notably, spinal stiffness has been shown to decrease in symptomatic subjects following spinal manipulation. Given the results of other studies using mechanical devices to apply forces to musculoskeletal tissues, we do not expect that having massage applied by a therapist would have altered the conclusion of this study. Moreover, we speculate that in asymptomatic subjects, stiffness values are near a minimal value which creates a floor effect. This work was supported in part by the Canada Research Chairs program (support for GN Kawchuk) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (operating costs).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 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) | 0.000 | 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 teacher head, 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".