Muscle strength rather than appendicular skeletal muscle mass might affect spinal sagittal alignment, low back pain, and health-related quality of life

Abstract

Sarcopenia is defined as decreasing in muscle strength and mass, and dynapenia is defined as decreasing in muscle strength and maintained muscle mass. This study elucidated the prevalence and characteristics of sarcopenia and dynapenia and evaluate in elderly spinal disorders patients. 1039 spinal disorders patients aged ≥ 65 years were included. We measured age, grip strength, muscle mass, spinal sagittal alignment parameters, low back pain (LBP) scores and health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) scores. Based on the previous reports, patients were categorised into normal group: NG, pre-sarcopenia group: PG, dynapenia group: DG, and sarcopenia group: SG. Pre-sarcopenia, dynapenia, and sarcopenia were found in 101 (9.7%), 249 (19.2%), and 91 (8.8%) patients, respectively. The spinal sagittal alignment parameters, trunk muscle mass, LBP, and HR-QoL scores were significantly worse in DG and SG compared with those in PG and NG. Spinal alignment, trunk muscle mass, and clinical outcomes, including LBP and HR-QoL scores, were maintained in the PG and poor in the DG and SG. Thus, intervention for muscle strength may be a treatment option for changes of spinal sagittal alignment and low back pain.

Secondary Sarcopenia and Spinal Cord Injury: Clinical Associations and Health Outcomes

“…This does not fit into the general frame of our study design, because patients with SCI participating in this study were, in general, young adults, with a mean age of 41 years in the NS-SCI group and 35 years in the S-SCI group; this reinforces the above mentioned hypothesis, and aligns with epidemiological studies regarding the average age at which SCIs occur, which was 37.6 years in a study from 2000 [45]. Another study published in 2023 by Tanaka et al (N = 1039) found a statistically significantly higher mean age in the sarcopenic group compared with the non-sarcopenic one [46]. However, secondary sarcopenia occurs if other factors, besides aging, are evident in the study sample, as per our research [47].…”