Biomechanics / Biomechanical Engineering
Mahdi Bagheri Rouchi; Mehrdad Davoudi; Mohammad Parnianpour
Volume 13, Issue 2 , August 2019, , Pages 177-187
Abstract
According to the literature, changes in muscle activity patterns are considered as one of the causes of non-specific chronic low back pain. Recent studies have introduced muscle synergy as a valuable tool for analyzing how muscles work in body movements. In this way, a new study method is proposed for ...
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According to the literature, changes in muscle activity patterns are considered as one of the causes of non-specific chronic low back pain. Recent studies have introduced muscle synergy as a valuable tool for analyzing how muscles work in body movements. In this way, a new study method is proposed for modeling upper body and extracting time-varying muscle synergies in flexural motion of the waist. In this way, a new study method is proposed for modeling trunk and extracting time-varying muscle synergies in plane bending movements of lumbar flexion. Considering 18 effective muscles and function of the combined cost of the minimum jerk-energy, 24 different movements and their corresponding muscle patterns have been simulated. To evaluate the role of velocity, the pattern of muscle activity was divided into two parts: tonic, to overcome the gravity force, and phasic, proportional to the trunk movement velocity. In the following, three fast-reaching times of 0.75, 1, and 2 seconds were considered for each direction. The results showed that 77% of the lumbar muscle pattern of movement was achieved by four phasic synergies and four tonic synergies. The resulting synergies are quite influenced by the movement direction and velocity, so that each pair of phasic and tonic synergy is most effective in one of the main directions. On the other hand, the increase in velocity causes elevated amplitude coefficient and accelerated activation of phasic synergies compared to normal mode. Considering the 45° flexion combination with 30° left lateral bending, 77.2% of the muscle pattern of movement has been reconstructed using time-varying synergies. It can be argued that the use of muscle synergies expresses a good explanation for how muscles work in movement at different directions and velocities.
Biomechanics of Bone / Bone Biomechanics
Mohammad Nikkhoo; Mohammad Haghpanahi; J. L. Wang; Mohammad Parnianpour
Volume 5, Issue 1 , June 2011, , Pages 21-32
Abstract
Prediction of the relationship between different types of mechanical loading and the failure of the intervertebral disc is so important to identify the risk factors which are difficult to study in vivo and in vitro. On the basis of finite element methods some of these issues may be overcome ...
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Prediction of the relationship between different types of mechanical loading and the failure of the intervertebral disc is so important to identify the risk factors which are difficult to study in vivo and in vitro. On the basis of finite element methods some of these issues may be overcome enabling more detailed assessment of the biomechanical behavior of the intervertebral disc. The objective of this paper is to develop a nonlinear axisymmetric poroelastic finite element model of lumbar motion segment and show its capability for studying the time-dependent response of disc. After comparison of the response of different models in quasi-static analysis, the poroelastic model of intervertebral disc is presented and the results of short-term, long-term creep tests and cyclic loading were investigated. The results of the poroelastic model are in agreement with experimental ones reported in the literature. Hence, this model can be used to study how different dynamic loading regimes are important as risk factors for initiation of intervertebral disc degeneration.
