A biomechanical study to compare spinal movement in a healthy volunteer during extrication between 'chain cabling' and 'roof off' methods of extrication.

Introduction: Following a motor vehicle collision some patients will remain trapped. Traditional extrication methods are time consuming and focus on movement minimisation and mitigation. 'Chain cabling' is an alternative method of extrication used in some countries.

Assessing spinal movement during four extrication methods: a biomechanical study using healthy volunteers.

Background: Motor vehicle collisions are a common cause of death and serious injury. Many casualties will remain in their vehicle following a collision. Trapped patients have more injuries and are more likely to die than their untrapped counterparts.

Maximum movement and cumulative movement (travel) to inform our understanding of secondary spinal cord injury and its application to collar use in self-extrication.

Background: Motor vehicle collisions remain a common cause of spinal cord injury. Biomechanical studies of spinal movement often lack "real world" context and applicability. Additional data may enhance our understanding of the potential for secondary spinal cord injury.

The role of cervical collars and verbal instructions in minimising spinal movement during self-extrication following a motor vehicle collision - a biomechanical study using healthy volunteers.

Background: Motor vehicle collisions account for 1.3 million deaths and 50 million serious injuries worldwide each year. However, the majority of people involved in such incidents are uninjured or have injuries which do not prevent them exiting the vehicle.

The visual categorization of production automotive seats on descriptors of comfort.

Background: The role of appearance of automotive seats on perceived comfort and comfort expectancy has been acknowledged in previous research but it has not been investigated in depth.

Objective: To identify the effects of the appearance of production automotive seats, based on the hypothesis that visual design differentiations are affective in creating comfort expectations. The significance of the descriptors Sporty, Luxurious and Comfortable and the associated visual design attributes was of interest.

Shoulder torques resulting from luggage handling tasks in non-inertial frames.

Background: This paper reports on the torques developed in the shoulder joint experienced by occupants of moving vehicles during manual handling tasks. Handling heavy weights can cause musculoskeletal injuries, especially if handling is done with arms extended or at high levels.

Objective: The aim of the study was to measure the longitudinal and lateral accelerations in a variety of passenger vehicles together with the postures of subjects lifting luggage onto storage shelves.

Intrapersonal and interpersonal evaluation of upper extremity kinematics.

Background: The quality of upper extremity (UE) function can be evaluated by measuring the kinematic parameters of patient movements.

Objective: This investigation focused on finding the angles and angular velocity amplitudes of UE motions in healthy participants to compare with the experimental results of patients with a UE disability who are trying to recover previous movement conditions.

Methods: The UE motions of 23 healthy adult volunteers were tested using a three-dimensional motion capture system and measuring hand segment motions.

A Design Method for FES Bone Health Therapy in SCI.

FES assisted activities such as standing, walking, cycling and rowing induce forces within the leg bones and have been proposed to reduce osteoporosis in spinal cord injury (SCI). However, details of the applied mechanical stimulus for osteogenesis is often not reported. Typically, comparisons of bone density results are made after costly and time consuming clinical trials.

Constitutive kinematic modes and shapes during vehicle ingress/egress.

A study was undertaken to investigate the kinematics of older users of passenger vehicles during ingress/egress and to seek correlations between their movement and comfort rating assigned by the subjects to the ease of vehicle ingress and egress. A principal component analysis was performed on the subjects' kinematics to identify the underlying modes of movement employed by the subjects. It was found that a small number of modes could describe the movements of all the subjects across all of the vehicles.

Biomechanical metrics of aesthetic perception in dance.

The brain may be tuned to evaluate aesthetic perception through perceptual chunking when we observe the grace of the dancer. We modelled biomechanical metrics to explain biological determinants of aesthetic perception in dance. Eighteen expert (EXP) and intermediate (INT) dancers performed développé arabesque in three conditions: (1) slow tempo, (2) slow tempo with relevé, and (3) fast tempo.

Computational method for the real-time calculation of the full-body muscle load distribution.

A method is described for minimising a quadratic function subject to equality and inequality constraints. This approach is applicable to solving the full-body muscle load distribution problem and calculating joint contact loads. It has been found that this approach can provide the solution on modest computing facilities and in significantly less time than using active set and interior point quadratic programming techniques.

Consistency among musculoskeletal models: caveat utilitor.

Musculoskeletal simulation software and model repositories have broadened the user base able to perform musculoskeletal analysis and have facilitated in the sharing of models. As the recognition of musculoskeletal modeling continues to grow as an engineering discipline, the consistency in results derived from different models and software is becoming more critical. The purpose of this study was to compare eight models from three software packages and evaluate differences in quadriceps moment arms, predicted muscle forces, and predicted tibiofemoral contact forces for an idealized knee-extension task spanning -125 to +10° of knee extension.

The generation of loads in excess of the osteogenic threshold by physical movement.

This study investigates the use of physical movement to cause joint and bone loads that stimulate bone growth in order to reduce the adverse effects of osteoporosis. It has been established that stresses in bones in excess of the osteogenic threshold will stimulate bone growth; however, protocols for the generation of these stresses had not been established. Two trial movements were examined in the study: the plié and a movement requiring the subject to move a leg sequentially to 45° displaced positions - the star excursion balance test.

A kinematic approach to calculating ground reaction forces in dance.

A technique that can be used with dancers for the calculation of ground reaction forces in the absence of force plates is described. The ground reaction forces are required for analyzing potentially injurious activity within the dancer's body. However, the use of a force plate for this purpose disrupts the performance surface and could, due to its stiffness, in itself lead to injury.

Calculation of muscle loading and joint contact forces during the rock step in Irish dance.

A biomechanical model for the analysis of dancers and their movements is described. The model consisted of 31 segments, 35 joints, and 539 muscles, and was animated using movement data obtained from a three-dimensional optical tracking system that recorded the motion of dancers. The model was used to calculate forces within the muscles and contact forces at the joints of the dancers in this study.