Multi-joint protective effects of lumbar brace on lumbar, hip, knee, and ankle in parachute landing with backpack...

There were high injury risks on lumbar and lower limb joints in parachuting landing, and the lumbar brace could protect lumbar. Besides, a backpack load was necessary in parachute landing and increased the injury risk. This study aimed to evaluate multi-joints protective effects of the lumbar brace on lumbar and lower limb joints in parachuting landing with the backpack load. Seven participants landed from a 120 cm height platform without and with a lumbar brace and without and with a 5-kg backpack load, respectively. Infrared makers were pasted on trunk, pelvis, and lower limb in order to build a multi-rigid-body model for calculating kinematic and kinetic parameters. The joint angular displacements of lumbar and ankle and the peak vertical ground reaction force were significantly decreased from 29.2 ± 9.2°, 45.2 ± 7.8°, and 14.7 ± 2.0 bodyweight to 21.6 ± 4.9° (p < 0.05), 39.0 ± 10.1° (p < 0.05) and 10.7 ± 1.3 bodyweight (p < 0.05) respectively by the lumbar brace with no backpack load, and the joint angular displacement of hip was significantly increased from 52.6 ± 7.2° to 68.3 ± 12.5° (p < 0.05). The joint angular displacement of lumbar and ankle were significantly decreased from 29.0 ± 5.0° and 53.8 ± 5.1° to 25.1 ± 5.2° (p < 0.05) and 48.5 ± 2.5° (p < 0.05) respectively by the lumbar brace with the backpack load, and the joint angular displacement of hip and knee were significantly increased from 60.1 ± 8.2° and 110.1 ± 9.3° to 69.7 ± 13.2° (p < 0.05) and 116.8 ± 5.8° (p < 0.05), respectively. The lumbar brace could provide the multi-joint protective effect by decreasing injuries of lumbar and ankle in landing both without and with the backpack load.