Authors:
A. Tsouknidas
;
N. Michailidis
;
S. Savvakis
;
K. Anagnostidis
;
G. Kapetanos
and
K.-D. Bouzakis
Affiliation:
Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Keyword(s):
Computer Tomography, Lumbar Spine, High Accuracy FEM Model, Biomechanical Response.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Agents
;
Artificial Intelligence
;
Bioinformatics
;
Biomedical Engineering
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Information Systems Analysis and Specification
;
Methodologies and Technologies
;
Model Design and Evaluation
;
Operational Research
;
Simulation
Abstract:
The lumbar spine is origin of the most frequent complains among all human body parts, since almost 80% of the population will at some point in life exhibit back related pathologies which in their majority will not require invasive surgery. Regardless the cause or the development of the problem, the in-depth investigation of its cause is of the upmost importance during treatment or preoperative evaluation. In this context a model of the L1-L5 vertebra, capable of accurately assessing the biomechanical response of the lumbar spine derived from human activity as well as externally induced loads, would be an effective tool during the examination of normal or clinical conditions. This study presents a CT based FEM model of the lumbar spine taking into account all function related boundary conditions such as mechanical property anisotropy, ligaments, contact elements mesh size etc. The developed model is capable of comparing the mechanical response of a healthy lumbar spine to any given pa
thology, which can be easily introduced into the model, thus providing valuable insight on the stress development within the model and predict critical movements and loads of potential patients.
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