Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10431846 | Journal of Biomechanics | 2014 | 7 Pages |
Abstract
The distal radius fracture (DRF) is a particularly dominant injury of the wrist, commonly resulting from a forward fall on an outstretched hand. In an attempt to reduce the prevalence, costs, and potential long-term pain/deformities associated with this injury, in vivo and in vitro investigations have sought to classify the kinematics and kinetics of DRFs. In vivo forward fall work has identified a preparatory muscle contraction that occurs in the upper extremity prior to peak impact force. The present investigation constitutes the first attempt to systematically determine the effect of static muscle forces on the fracture threshold of the distal radius in vitro. Paired human cadaveric forearm specimens were divided into two groups, one that had no muscle forces applied (i.e., right arms) and the other that had muscle forces applied to ECU, ECRL, FCU and FCR (i.e., left arms), with magnitudes based on peak muscle forces and in vivo lower bound forward fall activation patterns. The specimens were secured in a custom-built pneumatic impact loading device and subjected to incremental impacts at pre-fracture (25Â J) and fracture (150 Â J) levels. Similar fracture forces (6565 (866)Â N and 8665 (5133)Â N), impulses (47 (6)Â Ns and 57 (30)Â Ns), and energies (152 (38)Â J and 144 (45)Â J) were observed for both groups of specimens (p>0.05). Accordingly, it is suggested that, at the magnitudes presently simulated, muscle forces have little effect on the way the distal radius responds to forward fall initiated impact loading.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Engineering
Biomedical Engineering
Authors
Jacob M. Reeves, Timothy A. Burkhart, Cynthia E. Dunning,