Personalised gravitational loading of the cervical spine from biplanar X-rays for asymptomatic and clinical subjects in neutral standing position.

Background: As a leading cause of disability with a high societal and economic cost, it is crucial to better understand risk factors of neck pain and surgical complications. Getting subject-specific external loading is essential for quantifying muscle forces and joint loads but it requires exertion trials and load cells which are uncommon in clinical settings.

Methods: This paper presents a method to compute the gravitational loading at four levels of the cervical spine (C3C4, C4C5, C5C6, C6C7) in neutral standing position from biplanar radiographs exclusively.

Abdominal response to high-speed seatbelt loading.

Unlabelled: This study was conducted to address injury risk due to high-speed loading of the abdomen by a seatbelt during the pretension phase. Indeed, a better coupling of occupants to the structure of the vehicle in frontal impact can be achieved by a strong pretension of the lap belt. However, out of position considerations have to be taken into account in the development of pretension systems.