The effect of lumbar-pelvic alignment and abdominal muscle thickness on primary dysmenorrhea.
Moon-Jeong Kim, Il-Hun Baek, Bong-Oh Goo
PMID 27821975WHAT IT FOUND
Women with primary dysmenorrhea had greater scoliosis and lordotic angle and thinner abdominal muscles than the normal group.
The study compared groups, so it cannot show these differences caused pain.
Key findings
01The primary dysmenorrhea group had more scoliosis (6.7 ± 4.3°) than the normal group (3.8 ± 2.0°), and a larger lordotic angle (0.6 ± 0.5°) than the normal group (0.1 ± 0.3°).
02The primary dysmenorrhea group had thinner internal oblique (3.8 ± 1.3 mm versus 6.0 ± 1.9 mm), transverse abdominis (2.6 ± 6.8 mm versus 3.5 ± 6.1 mm), and external oblique (4.0 ± 0.8 mm versus 5.4 ± 1.4 mm) muscles.
03Pelvic tilt, pelvic torsion, and slice rotation did not show significant differences between groups.
STILL TO COME
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What it does not show
The study included only women aged 20 to 45 in Busan who had no uterine disease or musculoskeletal disorder, so it may not apply to patients with other causes of pelvic or low back pain. The dysmenorrhea group was restricted to women with a VAS score of at least 8, so it may not represent milder dysmenorrhea. More women dropped out from the normal group than from the dysmenorrhea group, leaving 22 normal participants and 28 dysmenorrhea participants. Daily habits such as smoking, alcohol consumption, medication, and amount of exercise were not controlled. The ages of the subjects varied from the 20s to 40s, and the age distribution was not even. The sample size was small. Because the study compared existing groups rather than assigning a treatment, it cannot show that alignment or muscle thickness differences caused dysmenorrhea.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that correcting lumbar-pelvic alignment or increasing abdominal muscle thickness will relieve primary dysmenorrhea. This study compared women with and without primary dysmenorrhea and found associations, not treatment effects.