ABSTRACT
This chapter presents three examples of disorders that can cause spinal pain of mechanical origin. The effect of leg length inequality of 10 to 26 mm on the lumbosacral spine, pelvic obliquity, hip joints, and knee joints is described. Leg length inequality and its postural scoliosis in individuals up to the age of approximately 53 years can be corrected with a shoe raise; after that age a fixed curve with disc wedging and vertebral body osteophytosis occurs. Erect posture anteroposterior plain X-ray imaging of the pelvis and lumbar spine before and after shoe raise shows the effects on leg length inequality, pelvic obliquity, postural scoliosis, facet joint subluxation, hip joints, and the psoas major muscle shadows.
Mechanically induced degenerative spondylolisthesis due to facet joint tropism, with cartilage degeneration is illustrated.
Tethered cord occurs in infants, children and in adults and presents with a constellation of neurological signs and symptoms that result from mechanical traction/tension on the spinal cord between fixed points during growth. Its pathophysiology involves excessive mechanical tension of the spinal cord, vascular compromise, and hypoxia resulting in neurological impairment.
