Evaluations for Lifting and Traction Forces of Low Extremities with Fracture

Abstract

Preoperative skin sterilization, disinfection, and fracture reduction are all necessary for surgeries of the fractured lower extremity. This procedure requires several medical personnel, even though its tasks are relatively simple. Therefore, development of an assistant device for the preoperative disinfection and the simple fracture reduction is required as an alternative. To obtain the design specifications of the equipment, we evaluated lifting and traction forces using the lower extremities of Korean fresh cadavers. The lifting force was measured when each leg was lifted from the table using 39 Korean fresh cadavers. The same method was applied to measure the traction force on a femoral fracture model using 22 Korean fresh cadavers. The mean lifting force was 36.8 ± 11.8 N, and the mean traction force was 116.8 ± 37.9 N. Regression analysis yielded the following equations: lifting force = 0.6724*(body weight) - 0.8068, R2 = 0.71; traction force = 1.6880*(body weight) + 18.1495, R2 = 0.57. This study determined the lifting and traction forces, not just the body segment weights. These results will be helpful for developing medical assistant devices.