Exercise Science Honors Undergraduate Receives Recognition for Research

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Kaitlin Gallagher, left, and Laura Abbott

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – University of Arkansas senior Laura Abbott was awarded third place among undergraduate students who presented recently at the student conference at Texas Woman's University in Denton, Texas.

Abbott is majoring in exercise science and is a member of the Honors College. Her faculty mentor is Kaitlin Gallagher, assistant professor of exercise science. Abbott presented her honors thesis titled "The relationship between qualitative and quantitative pain descriptors of prolonged standing induced low back pain."

Between 40 and 71 percent of sample populations report developing low back pain during two hours of prolonged standing, according to her research. Predicting who will develop low back pain is of interest to clinicians in order to better help this population. This is currently done through clinical tests and rating pain on a scale of 0-100, but reports of pain symptoms and their relationship to numerical ratings have not been examined.

The purpose of Abbott's study was to investigate differences in pain reporting for individuals based on numerical ratings versus pain symptoms to better define development of lower back pain induced by prolonged standing. Abbott found that more people reported low back pain symptoms during two hours of prolonged standing than when their pain was rated on a numerical scale.

Her travel to the conference was supported by the Honors College.