1. A FINITE ELEMENT MODEL FOR THE TIBIA OF A SPINAL CORD INJURED PATIENT
- Author
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David B. Allan, Qusai Hatem, K. Elizabeth Tanner, Yuji Tanabe, Keisuke Sasagawa, S. Coupaud, and Magnus K. Gislason
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Weakness ,business.industry ,Rehabilitation ,Osteoporosis ,Biomedical Engineering ,Biophysics ,Spinal cord ,medicine.disease ,Surgery ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Musculoskeletal disorder ,Medicine ,Orthopedics and Sports Medicine ,Femur ,Tibia ,medicine.symptom ,business ,Paraplegia ,Spinal cord injury - Abstract
In paraplegia of Spinal Cord Injury (SCI), bone loss can occur rapidly and extensively in the paralysed lower limbs. It was reported that some patients develop osteoporosis in the tibia and femur even within the first year of injury [Coupaud et al, 2011]. Weakening of the bones after SCI is accompanied by a substantially increased risk of fracture. It is important to predict the most likely locations of fracture at regions of weakness along the bone in SCI. There is a clinical need to understand the macro-structural behaviour of the long bones in the body in order to develop potential physical treatments to tackle this musculoskeletal disorder in SCI patients. The aim of this ongoing study is to develop a modelling tool to help clinicians to quantify changes in bone structure and fracture susceptibility resulting from bone loss in the paralysed limbs after SCI.
- Published
- 2012
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