Towards a Non-Invasive Technique for Healing Assessment of Internally Fixated Femur.

Wing Chiu,Mark Fitzgerald,Matthias Russ,Benjamin Vien

doi:10.3390/s19040857

Wing Chiu, Mark Fitzgerald + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/s19040857

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Abstract

The lack of a quantitative method to adequately assess fractured bone healing that has undergone fixation limits prognostic capabilities on patients’ optimal return to work. This paper addresses the use of vibrational analysis to monitor the state of healing of a plate-screw fixated femur and supplement the current clinical radiographic assessment. This experimental study involves an osteotomised composite femur specimen enclosed by modelling clay to simulate the damping effect of overlying soft tissues. Epoxy adhesives are applied to the fractured region and to simulate the healing process. With the instrumentation described, the cross-spectrum and coherence are obtained and analysed in the frequency domain over a period of time. The results suggest that it is crucial to analyse the cross-spectrum and proposed healing index to quantitatively assess the stages of healing. The results also show that the mass loading effect due to modelling clay did not influence the proposed healing assessment technique. The findings indicate a potential non-intrusive technique to evaluate the healing of fractured femur by utilising the vibrational responses.

Highlights

This paper is an extended version of the conference paper, Wing Kong Chiu, Benjamin StevenVien, Matthias Russ and Mark Fitzgerald, Healing assessment of an internally fixated femur using vibration analysis, 7th Asia-Pacific Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring 2018, Hong Kong, 12 November 2018.Internal fixations are a common standard treatment for a fractured femur to correct alignment, provide mechanical stability, allow weight bearing, and prompt early use of the limb while the bone is healing
This paper reports assessment of healing progression of a simulated fractured femur treated with plate-screw fixation using dynamic vibrational responses
The 2-sensor deployment methodology was presented in this study to mitigate the common use of an instrumented impactor for healing assessments using vibrational analysis

Summary

Introduction

Matthias Russ and Mark Fitzgerald, Healing assessment of an internally fixated femur using vibration analysis, 7th Asia-Pacific Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring 2018, Hong Kong, 12 November 2018. Internal fixations are a common standard treatment for a fractured femur to correct alignment, provide mechanical stability, allow weight bearing, and prompt early use of the limb while the bone is healing. The plate-screw fixation healing efficiency involves reducing the fracture gap such that bone contact develops at the fracture interface, immobilising the fracture site [2]. Internal fixation allows patients to return to normal function earlier than casts and splints would normally allow, as well as reduces the incidence of non-union and mal-union.

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