Degeneration in the spinal structures can be a major source of pain that increases with aging in a roughly linear progression. Pain has been further correlated with the regions of high stress and strain concentrations. Due to difference in the regional anatomy and physiology of the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar levels, their biomechanical response to physiological loadings is different. The fluid egresses outside in the radial direction from nucleus pulposus (NP) to annulus fibrosus (AF) under compression, which generates a hydrostatic pressure against an external applied load. The increased NP pressure, in many clinical cases, results into various abnormal disc pathologies such as protrusions and herniations. Chiropractic care in the management of these spinal dysfunctions uses manual manipulation therapies such as distraction techniques to relieve the disc from high pressure and radial bulging. Despite manual distraction therapy is a three-dimensional force application; major proportion of the load is exerted in the axial upward direction. Although few biomechanical studies have compared the segmental biomechanics under axial traction loads, to the best of our knowledge, there is no study that distinguishes between the behavior of cervical, thoracic, and lumbar segments to these loads. The objective of the present study, therefore, was to investigate that how the biomechanical stresses, that were developed under upper body weight (BW), changes in the various spinal segments (cervical, thoracic, and lumbar) and in the different spinal structures (top vertebra, superior endplate, and disc) when the traction forces were applied as the therapeutic modalities in the chiropractic interventions.

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