Quantification of intervertebral efforts and muscle forces through multibody modeling and electromyographic measurements: a scoliosis case study

Details

Supervisors

Fisette, Paul ; Hinnekens, Simon

Faculty

Ecole polytechnique de Louvain

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur civil mécanicien, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

Scoliosis is a deformity of the spine in the three planes, with the primary deformation occurring in the frontal plane. The principal objective of this master's thesis was to identify which vertebral segments of a scoliotic spine were subjected to the most mechanical stress. This information could serve as a valuable tool to reduce the reliance on surgeon intuition in the planning of scoliosis surgery when it is indicated. In order to achieve this, it was necessary to compute the efforts in each intervertebral disc and back muscle forces. This was done in the case of a static back extension, the Sorensen posture, based on the hybrid method developed and applied on healthy subjects by Hinnekens et al. Accordingly, the current study adapted the hybrid approach to render it applicable to the context of scoliosis. Furthermore, the adapted method was applied to a single healthy subject with similar anthropometric data to validate the adaptation and to highlight the differences between a subject with scoliosis and without. The intervertebral efforts and the muscle forces were successfully quantified for the lumbar spine and the associated back muscles. The results demonstrated several similarities with the existing literature, which was promising. Consequently, this study offers motivation to pursue the quantification of such biological markers, with the aim of providing assistance in the medical field and generalizing the results to a larger population of scoliotic patients.