Improvement in determining the risk of damage to the human lumbar functional spinal unit considering age, height, weight and sex using a combination of FEM and RSM.

Improvement in determining the risk of damage to the human lumbar functional spinal unit considering age, height, weight and sex using a combination of FEM and RSM. Biomech Model Mechanobiol. 2019 Aug 31;: Authors: Somovilla-Gómez F, Lostado-Lorza R, Corral-Bobadilla M, Escribano-García R Abstract Human functional spinal unit (FSU) is comprised of two adjacent vertebrae, the intervertebral disc (IVD), the cartilage endplates and the connecting ligamentous tissues. As humans age, trabecular, cortical bone and IVD change in mechanical properties. These changes influence the movement of the FSU (displacements, rotations and disc bulges). This paper proposes a method to determine the influence of sex, age, weight and height on the movements of the FSU using a combination of the FEM and RSM. The work concentrates on the medium-sized human FSU (L3-L4 lumbar level with standard dimensions of IVD: width = 50 mm, depth = 35 mm and height = 11 mm). Also, the proposed method could be an improvement to the determination of risk of damage based on body mass index (BMI), as well as an alternative method of searching for a healthy weight. The method was developed as follows: First, a three-dimensional parameterized human healthy FSU FE model was generated based on the standard test (for compression, flexion, extension, lateral bending, torsion and shear). The movements of the FSU FE model based on the aforementioned standardized te...
Source: Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology - Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Tags: Biomech Model Mechanobiol Source Type: research