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High loads can appear in the individual joints of the human foot while the driver uses the pedals, in particular, during breaking. Measuring these internal forces is very difficult or almost impossible; therefore, advanced models are necessary to perform musculoskeletal simulations. The objective of this investigation was to see what loads are acting in the individual foot joints from the phalanges to calcaneus and talus during different brake scenarios. The Glasgow-Maastricht AnyBody Foot Model with 26 separate segments, connected by joints, ligaments and muscles was used inside the AnyBody Modeling System to compute individual mid foot joint loads. The amount, the direction of the force and additionally also the load insertion point was varied for several simulations. Figure 1: Seated musculoskeletal body model with applied brake force and forces for the lateral, intermediate and medial cuneiform-navicular joint for two different brake forces. The simulation showed that for the different brake scenarios, different muscles will be activated in the human and therefore different loads are apply in the fore-and mid-foot, respectively. The torso of the subject was assumed to be fixed in the seat. Further studies are ongoing to simulate the seat as an elastic element that allows different H-point locations according to the different loadings in the foot from the brake pedal using a new inverse dynamics analysis method called force-dependent kinematics.
Football players have a high risk of leg muscle injuries, especially when exposed to mental stress. Injuries to muscles of the thigh are common in amateur and professional football, representing almost a third of all injuries. These injuries occur primarily in non-contact situations and from overuse. They can lead to a range of costs, including financial costs associated with treatment as well as those associated with long-term recovery, and absence from training and/or competition. Further, there is a high risk of injury recurrence and subsequent injury.
Für Fußballer:innen stellen muskuläre Verletzungen der unteren Extremitäten ein großes Problem dar. Ein Beispiel hierfür liefert die Nationalmannschaftsstürmerin Alexandra Popp, die aufgrund muskulärer Probleme das EM-Finale 2022 in Wembley kurzfristig verpasste. Oftmals stehen gerade hohe Anspannungssituationen in zeitlichem Zusammenhang mit Verletzungen, der Einfluss der psychischen Beanspruchung auf die biomechanischen Belastungen wird jedoch meist nur wenig beachtet.
Soccer is one of the most popular sports all around the world. It is an injurious type of sport with a focus on lower extremities and high psychological pressure during matches. The stressor is linked with injuries and an increased musculoskeletal loading. This study investigates the influence of cognitive stress on the load profile of the knee joint. Twelve professional youth soccer players performed highly dynamic runs with and without additional cognitive stress. The runs were analysed with a musculoskeletal simulation software. The data analysis shows no difference in knee joint reaction loading under additional mental stress compared to the baseline. Yet running times are significantly lower in the baseline. While there is no increase in the joint loads, the running times indicate an altered movement behaviour when the subjects are exposed to additional mental demand.
Mental stress reduces performance and changes musculoskeletal loading in football-related movements
(2020)
Purpose:
Football players have a high risk of leg muscle injuries, especially when exposed to mental stress. Hence, this study investigated the musculoskeletal response of elite youth football players during highly dynamic movements under stress. The hypothesis is that mental stress reduces performance and changes the muscular forces exerted.
Materials & methods:
Twelve elite youth football players were subjected to mental stress while performing sports-specific change-of-direction movements. A modified version of the d2 attention test was used as stressor. The kinetics are computed using inverse dynamics. Running times and exerted forces of injury-prone muscles were analysed.
Results:
The stressor runs were rated more mentally demanding by the players (p = 0.006, rs = 0.37) with unchanged physical demand (p = 0.777, rs = 0.45). This resulted in 10% longer running times under stress (p < 0.001, d = −1.62). The musculoskeletal analysis revealed higher peak muscle forces under mental stress for some players but not for others.
Discussion:
The study shows that motion capture combined with musculoskeletal computation is suitable to analyse the effects of stress on athletes in highly dynamic movements. For the first time in football medicine, our data quantifies an association between mental stress with reduced football players’ performance and changes in muscle force.
Evaluation of muscle recruitment and muscle models in musculoskeletal simulation of dynamic motion
(2021)
Musculoskeletal simulation plays an increasingly important role in sports biomechanics. In the last years, the field of application widened from orthopaedics and ergonomics to sports [1]. A muscle recruitment algorithm with a quadratic objective function is usually used to calculate muscle activity in dynamic movements. The agreement of calculated and measured thigh muscle activity has already been investigated [2]. They found a strong agreement for sprinting and running, while the correlation decreased for side-cutting manoeuvres. Nevertheless, the influence of different muscle recruitment criteria on muscle activity in dynamic musculoskeletal simulations is currently unknown. Hence, this study aimed to analyse the effect of different muscle recruitment criteria and muscle models on the correlation of numerical and measured muscle activity in highly dynamic movements.
Football players have a high risk of leg muscle injuries, especially when exposed to mental stress. Injuries to muscles of the thigh are common in amateur and professional football, representing almost a third of all injuries. These injuries occur primarily in non-contact situations and from overuse. They can lead to a range of costs, including financial costs associated with treatment as well as those associated with long-term recovery, and absence from training and/or competition. Further, there is a high risk of injury recurrence and subsequent injury.
Exoskeletons were invented over 100 years ago but have only become popular in the last two decades, especially in the working industry as they can decrease work-related loads significantly. The most often used exoskeletons are for the lower back and shoulder since these are commonly affected body regions. All devices have in common that their purpose is to reduce internal loads of vulnerable body regions. Nevertheless, there is still little understanding on how biomechanical loading in the human body changes when exoskeletons are used. Therefore, further analyses are needed. A promising candidate for these are musculoskeletal models, which are based on an inverse dynamics approach and can calculate external parameters such as ground reaction forces or other interaction forces as well as internal parameters such as joint reaction forces or muscle activities. The various examples in the literature show that these models are increasingly used for assessing the biomechanical effects of exoskeletons on the human body. Furthermore, musculoskeletal models can calculate biomechanical loadings of humans with and without exoskeletons for all kinds of applications and allow an evaluation of their purpose.
Practical Relevance: This article highlights the possibilities of musculoskeletal models for assessing the design and efficiency of occupational exoskeletons. Several practical use cases are described along with distinct descriptions of common implications of musculoskeletal and exoskeleton modeling.
BACKGROUND:
Validation and verification of multibody musculoskeletal models sEMG is a difficult process because of the reliability of sEMG data and the complex relationship of muscle force and sEMG.
OBJECTIVE:
This work aims at comparing experimentally recorded and simulated muscle activities considering a numerical model for crosstalk. METHODS:
For providing an experimentally derived reference data set, subjects were performing elevations of the arm, where the activities of the contemplated muscle groups were measured by sEMG sensors. Computed muscle activities were further processed and transformed into an artificial electromyographical signal, which includes a numerical crosstalk model. In order to determine whether the crosstalk model provides a better agreement with the measured muscle activities, the Pearson correlation coefficient has been computed as a qualitative way of assessing the curve progression of the data sets.
RESULTS:
The results show an improvement in the correlation coefficient between the experimental data and the simulated muscle activities when taking crosstalk into account.
CONCLUSIONS:
Although the correlation coefficient increased when the crosstalk model was utilized, it is questionable if the discretization of both, the crosstalk and the musculoskeletal model, is accurate enough.
Based on electromyographic data and force measurements within the shoulder joint, there is an indication that muscle and resulting joint reaction forces keep increasing over an abduction angle of 90°. In inverse dynamics models, no single parameter could be attributed to simulate this force behaviour accordingly. The aim of this work is to implement kinematic, kinetic and muscle model modifications to an existing model of the shoulder (AnyBody™) and assess their single and combined effects during abduction up to 140° humeral elevation. The kinematics and the EMG activity of 10 test subjects were measured during humeral abduction. Six modifications were implemented in the model: alternative wrapping of the virtual deltoid muscle elements, utilization of a three element Hill model, strength scaling, motion capture driven clavicle elevation/protraction, translation of the GH joint in dependency of the acting forces and an alteration of the scapula/clavicle rhythm. From the six modifications, 16 different combinations were considered. Parameter combinations with the Hill model changed the resultant GH joint reaction force and led to an increase in force during abduction of the humerus above 90°. Under the premise of muscle activities and forces within the GH joint rising after 90° of humeral abduction, we propose that the Hill type muscle model is a crucial parameter for accurately modelling the shoulder. Furthermore, the outcome of this study indicates that the Hill model induces the co-contraction of the muscles of the shoulder without the need of an additional stability criterion for an inverse dynamics approach.
Musculoskeletal modelling of the shoulder – effects on muscle recruitment and joint reaction force
(2019)
The gold standard for the analysis of human kinematics and kinetics is a camera-based motion capture system in combination with force measurement platforms. Alternatively, inertial measurement units can be utilized to obtain human kinematics, while ground reaction forces are computed from full body dynamics. This setup represents a system independent from the spatial confinement of a gait laboratory. The aim of this study is the comparison of the two methods by the investigation of lower limb kinematics and the resulting joint reaction forces within the ankle-, knee- and hip joints. For this purpose, human motion during gait was captured simultaneously by both measurement techniques. 13 trials from 8 different test subjects were evaluated in total. IMU data was processed with a quaternion based Kalman Filter. The data sets were implemented into a musculoskeletal simulation program in order to drive a virtual human body model. Each sensor was aligned to the gravitational and magnetic field vectors of the earth. The angles of flexions, extensions and rotations were analyzed to determine kinematic differences. Joint reaction forces defined kinetic dissimilarities. The overall kinematic differences of both models yielded root mean square errors of 7.62°, 6.02°, 4.95°, 2.79°, 2.38° and 3.56° for ankle flexion, subtalar eversion, knee flexion, hip external rotation, hip abduction and hip flexion, respectively. The proximo-distal differences in force peaks between the models yielded overall for the ankle, 57.33 %Bodyweight(BW) ± 46.86 %BW (16.66 %(Maximum peak to peak) ± 13.62 %) for the knee 37.09 %BW ± 29.33 %BW (17.65 % ± 15.44 %) and 32.03 %BW ± 24.33 %BW (15.6 % ± 12.54 %) for the hip. The overall outcome of this work investigated an approach independent of the common setup of the gait laboratory, thus enabling a cheaper and more flexible technology as an alternative. However, kinematic and thus kinetic differences remain rather large. Future work aims to improve the contact criterion for the calculation of the ground reaction forces and the implementation of a full-body calibration algorithm for the IMU system in order to counteract magnetic field disturbances.
Musculoskeletal models of the shoulder complex are valuable research aids to investigate tears of the supraspinatus and the resulting mechanical impact during abduction of the humerus. One of the major contributors to this motion is the deltoid muscle group and for this, an accurate modeling of the lines of action is indispensable. The aim of this work was to utilize a torus obstacle wrapping approach for the deltoids of an existing shoulder model and assess the feasibility of the approach during humeral abduction. The shoulder model from the AnyBody™ modeling system was used as a platform. The size of the tori is based on a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach and several kinematic couplings are implemented to determine the trajectories of the tori during abduction. To assess the model behavior, the moment arms of the virtual muscle elements and the resultant glenohumeral joint reaction force (GHJF) were compared with reference data from the literature during abduction of the humerus in the range 20°–120°. The root mean square error for the anterior, lateral and posterior part between the simulated muscle elements and reference data from the literature was 3.9, 1.7 and 5.8 mm, respectively. The largest deviation occurred on the outer elements of the muscle groups, with 12.6, 10.4 and 20.5 mm, respectively. During abduction, there is no overlapping of the muscle elements and these are in continuous contact with the torus obstacles, thus enabling a continuous force transmission. This results in a rising trend of the resultant GHJF.
The torus obstacle approach as a wrapping method for the deltoid muscles provides a guided muscle pathing by simultaneously approximating the curvature of the deltoid muscle. The results from the comparison of the simulated moment arms and the resultant GHJF are in accordance with those in the literature in the range 20°–120° of abduction.
Although this study shows the strength of the torus obstacle as a wrapping approach, the method of fitting the tori according to MRI data was not suitable. A cadaver study is recommended to better validate and mathematically describe the torus approach.
Forschungsbericht 2013
(2014)
The number of spinal fusion surgeries is steadily increasing and biomechanical consequences are still in debate. The aim of this study is to provide biomechanical insights into the sagittal balance of the spine and to compare spinal load before and after spinal fusion.
METHOD:
The joint reaction forces of 52 patients were analyzed in proximo-distal and antero-posterior direction from the levels T12-L1 to L5-S1 using musculoskeletal simulations.
RESULTS:
In 104 simulations, pre-surgical forces were equal to post-surgical. The levels L4-L5 and T12-L1, however, showed increased spinal forces compression forces with higher sagittal displacement. Improved restauration of sagittal balance was accompanied by lower spinal load. AP shear stress, interestingly decreased with sagittal imbalance.
CONCLUSION:
Imbalanced spines have a risk of increased compression forces at Th12-L1. L4-L5 always has increased spinal loads. These slides can be retrieved under Electronic Supplementary Material.
Forschung 2018
(2018)
Contact force path in total hip arthroplasty: effect of cup medialisation in a whole-body simulation
(2020)
Background:
Cup medialisation down to the true acetabular floor in total hip arthroplasty with a compensatory femoral offset increase seems to be mechanically advantageous for the abductor muscles due to the relocation of the lever arms (body weight lever arm decreased, abductor lever arm increased). However, limited information is currently available about the effects of this reconstruction type at the head cup interface, compared to an anatomical reconstruction that maintains the natural lever arms. Through a whole-body simulation analysis, we compared medialised versus anatomical reconstruction in THA to analyse the effects on: (1) contact force magnitude at the head cup interface; (2) contact force path in the cup; and (3) abductor activity.
Methods:
Musculoskeletal simulations were performed to calculate the above-mentioned parameters using inverse dynamics analysis. The differences between the virtually implanted THAs were calculated to compare the medialised versus anatomical reconstruction.
Results:
Cup medialisation with compensatory femoral offset increase led to: (1) a reduction in contact force magnitude at the head cup interface up to 6.6%; (2) a similar contact force path in the cup in terms of sliding distance and aspect ratio; and (3) a reduction in abductor activity up to 17.2% (gluteus medius).
Conclusions:
In our opinion, these potential biomechanical gains do not generally justify a fully medialised reconstruction, especially in younger patients that are more likely to undergo revision surgery in their lifetime. Cup medialisation should be performed until sufficient press fit and bony coverage of a properly sized and oriented cup can be achieved.
Biomechanik des Alterns
(2016)
Einführung in die Mechanik
(2013)
The development of biomimetic robots has gained research interest in the last years as it may both help under-standing processes of motion execution in biological systems as well as developping a novel generation of intelligent and energy efficient robots. However, exact model generation that builds up on observations and robot design is very time intensive. In this paper we present a novel pipeline for co-development of biomimetic hardware and simulation models based on biological Computer Tomography (CT) data. For this purpose we exploit State of the Art rapid prototyping technologies such as 3D Printing and the Neurorobotics Platform for musculoskeletal simulations in virtual environments. The co-development integrates both advantages of virtual and physical experimental models and is expected to increase development speed of controllers that can be tested on the simulated counterpart before application to a printed robot model. We demonstrate the pipeline by generating a one year old infant model as a musculoskeletal simulation model and a print-in-place 3D printed skeleton as a single movable part. Even though we hereonly introduce the initial body generation and only a first testsetup for a modular sensory and control framework, we can clearly spot advantages in terms of rapid model generation and highly biological related models. Engineering costs are reducedand models can be provided to a wide research community for controller testing in an early development phase.
Aufgrund der steigenden Lebenserwartung und dem damit einhergehenden demographischen Wandel wird der Bedarf an Rehabilitations-Behandlungen in absehbarer Zukunft stark ansteigen. Ein Beispiel für diesen Trend ist die physiotherapeutische Behandlung nach Erhalt einer Knie-Totalendoprothese (Knie-TEP). So gehen Modellrechnungen basierend auf dem Bevölkerungswachstum und der bisherigen Prävalenz von Knie-TEPs davon aus, dass die Anzahl an durchgeführten Eingriffen in einkommensstarken Ländern wie Deutschland weiter zunehmen wird. Weiterhin stoßen traditionelle Rehabilitationsverfahren, gerade in strukturschwachen Regionen, schon heute an ihre Grenzen. Deutlich zu sehen war das während den Hochphasen der aktuellen Covid-19-Pandemie, als der Kontakt zwischen Therapeut*in und Patient*in flächendeckend eingeschränkt war. Eine erhöhte Nachfrage nach neuartigen Reha-Angeboten ist die logische Konsequenz. Innovative Konzepte sind daher dringend notwendig, um die daraus resultierenden technischen, sozialen und ökonomischen Herausforderungen zu bewältigen.
Work places and conditions strains the human body, both psychologically and biomechanically. In order to analyse working conditions and in the following to improve them, detailed knowledge about the effect of the different stressors on the body is needed. This manuscript discusses methods on how to evaluate biomechanical and mental loading and its effect on the musculoskeletal system. A possible workflow for the analysis is presented.
Repeated loadings may cause fatigue fractures in bony structures. Even if these failure types are known, data for trabecular bone exposed to cyclic loading are still insufficient as the majority of fatigue analyses on bone concentrate on cortical structures. Despite its highly anisotropic and inhomogeneous structure, trabecular bone is treated with continuum approaches in fatigue analyses. The underlying deformation and damage mechanism within trabecular specimens are not yet sufficiently investigated. In the present study different types of trabecular bone were loaded in monotonic and cyclic compression. In addition to the measurement of integral specimen deformations, optical deformation analysis was employed in order to obtain strain distributions at different scale levels, from the specimens' surface to the trabeculae level. These measurements allowed for the possibility of linking the macroscopic and microscopic mechanical behaviour of cancellous bone. Deformations were found to be highly inhomogeneous across the specimen. Furthermore strains were found to already localise at very low load levels and after few load cycles. Microcracks in individual trabeculae were induced in the very early stage of cyclic testing. The results provide evidence of the capability of the method to supply essential data on the failure behaviour of individual trabeculae in future studies.
The fatigue behaviour of materials is of particular interest for the failure prediction of materials and structures exposed to cyclic loading. For trabecular bone structures only a few sets of lifetime data have been reported in the literature and structural measures are commonly not considered. The influence of load contributions not aligned with the main physiological axis remains unclear. Furthermore age effects on the fatigue behaviour are not well described. In the present study, different groups of human vertebral cancellous bone were exposed to cyclic compression. The inital modulus and therefore lifetimes were found to be highly dependent on age. The decrease in both with increasing age was much more pronounced in specimens which were not aligned with the main physiological axis. This implies that old bone is much more sensitive to (cyclic) failure loads in general but particularly to loads which are not coincident with the physiological main axis.
The fatigue behaviour of materials is of particular interest for the failure prediction of materials and structures exposed to cyclic loading. For trabecular bone structures only a few sets of lifetime data have been reported in the literature and structural measures are commonly not considered. The influence of load contributions which are not aligned with the main physiological axis remains unclear. Furthermore site and species dependent relationships are not well described. In this study five different groups of trabecular bone, defined in terms of orientation, species and site were exposed to cyclic compression. In total, 108 fatigue tests were analysed. The lifetimes were found to decrease drastically when off-axis loads were applied. Additionally, species and site strongly affect fatigue lifetimes. Strains at failure were also found to be a function of orientation.