Abstract:
Imagine a world where orthopedic surgeries are custom tailored to the patient, similar to how suits can be custom tailored to the business executive. Rather than basing surgical decisions on population studies or crude anatomic measurements, orthopedic surgeons interact with patient-specific computer models developed from medical imaging data and tuned to movement data collected from the patient prior to surgery. They use these models to predict the patient’s functional outcome for various combinations of surgical procedures, surgical parameters, and/or implant designs under consideration. The virtual human models use state-of-the art imaging, computational, simulation, and optimization technologies to allow the surgeon to optimize the surgical design variables. The end result is greatly improved functional outcome, more reliable surgical procedures, and millions of patients whose quality of life is improved through these technologies.
This talk will discuss the Computational Biomechanics Lab’s efforts to make this futuristic scenario a reality. With an initial focus on the knee, current research efforts in three related directions will be summarized: Dynamic modeling and simulation of 1) joint mechanics, 2) human movement, and 3) joint mechanics during human movement. Application areas include dynamic x-ray motion measurement of natural knees and bi-unicondylar knee replacements, patient-specific wear prediction in total knee replacements from in vivo motion data, surgery simulation of high tibial osteotomies to determine patient-specific optimal surgical parameters, and prediction of natural knee contact pressures during stair rise movements. Engineering technologies involved in these projects include multibody dynamics, elastic contact theory, local and global optimization, parallel processing, general numerical methods, geometric modeling, and image processing.