The lumbar deficiencies of workers suffering from chronic low back pain are evaluated during the execution of standardized tasks, which allows better isolation of the physiological phenomena considered. This study was interested in the deficiencies associated with trunk muscle coordination. Certain pain-related psychological variables can have an impact on muscle coordination measurements, which makes their interpretation more difficult.

The authors evaluated the possible association between a selection of psychological variables (fear of movement, pain catastrophizing) and neuromuscular measurements collected during three tasks. They also verified, in a more exploratory way, to what extent attentional demand modulates the impact of psychological processes on these neuromuscular measurements.

The results obtained suggest that a certain variation in these neuromuscular responses could be explained by the level of attention given to pain. This study does not provide recommendations about the conditions that would reduce these variations and for which types of subjects in particular. However, it concludes that pain-related psychological variables do not affect these neuromuscular responses to the point of generating major effects.