A new approach to assess movements and isometric postures of spine and trunk at the workplace.

Low back pain is regarded as the primary cause of occupational disability in many countries worldwide. However, there is a lack of valid assessment of kinematic spine and trunk parameters to provide further insight into occupational spine loads. A new 3-dimensional mobile measurement system (3D-SpineMoveGuard) was developed and evaluated by means of repeated dynamic and isometric trunk positions by 10 male and 10 female volunteers.

Physical performance in middle age and old age: good news for our sedentary and aging society.

Background: Physical performance often declines in middle age, but it is unclear to what extent this is due to biological aging. It can be difficult to determine whether such physical changes are truly age-related, as they might alternatively be explained as the negative consequences of a sedentary lifestyle.

Methods: We assessed the endurance of a physically active subgroup of the population by performing an age- and sex-stratified analysis of over 900,000 running times of marathon and half-marathon participants aged 20 to 79.