Quantification of chiropractic high-velocity, low-amplitude spinal manipulation (HVLA-SM) may require biomechanical equipment that can sample data at high rates. Although, there aren’t many studies reported in the literature regarding the minimal sampling rate required to record the HVLA-SM force-time profile data accurately and precisely. The authors purpose in this study was to study the effect of different sampling rates on the quantification of forces, durations, and rates of loading of simulated side posture lumbar spine HVLA-SM delivered by doctors of chiropractic. Five doctors of chiropractic (DCs) and 5 asymptomatic participants were found for this study. Force-time profiles were recorded during (i) 52 simulated HVLA-SM thrusts to a force transducer placed on a force plate by 2 DCs and (ii) 12 lumbar side posture HVLA-SM on 5 participants by 3 DCs. Data sampling rate of the force plate remained the same at 1000 Hz, whereas the sampling rate of the force transducer varied at 50, 100, 200, and 500 Hz. The data were reduced using custom-written MATLAB (Mathworks, Inc, Natick, MA) and MathCad (version 15; Parametric Technologies, Natick, MA) programs and analyzed descriptively. The average differences in the computed durations and rates of loading are smaller than 5% between 50 and 1000 Hz sampling rates. The differences in the computed preloads and peak loads are smaller than 3%.
The authors concluded that the small differences observed in the characteristics of force-time profiles of simulated manual HVLA-SM thrusts measured using various sampling rates suggest that a sampling rate as low as 50 to 100 Hz may be sufficient. They added that these results are applicable to the manipulation conducted in their study: manual side posture lumbar spine HVLA-SM.