Femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS) is a disorder characterized by
specific morphology of the femur and/or acetabulum, which may lead to hip pain during
gait. Compared to individuals without pain, people with FAIS walk with more anterior
pelvic tilt, and their pain may result from excessive anteriorly-directed hip joint forces.
Previous approaches using musculoskeletal modelling to calculate joint forces, however,
may inaccurately assume that each individual stands in an entirely neutral position when
determining static joint angles. Consequently, information on parameters that affect joint
forces (such as pelvic tilt) is lost in kinematic data used to estimate joint loading. To
observe the effect of computationally altered pelvic tilt on joint forces, gait data of six
healthy individuals were processed using Vicon and Visual3D. Each participant’s pelvic
tilt was adjusted by ±5 degrees and ±10 degrees of tilt at all time points. Five analyses
were performed per individual: no change in tilt, two posterior (positive) tilts, and two
anterior (negative) tilts. The resulting data were imported into OpenSim to estimate
forces from the femur onto the acetabulum in the anterior, superior, and medial
directions. Data for each participant were normalized for gait cycle and body weight in
MATLAB. Statistical parametric mapping software was used to determine if the
differences in joint loads were significant. A more anterior pelvic tilt led to a reduction in
anteriorly-directed joint forces, and an increase in the superior and medial directions.
Based on these results, each individual’s pelvic tilt (obtained from their stationary
kinematic data) was accounted for when modeling FAIS and healthy individuals. Using
the same methods as above, the hip joint forces of 22 people with FAIS were compared
to those of 22 healthy individuals as both groups walked at a prescribed speed. Although
there were reductions in joint forces in both FAIS limbs compared to those of the control
group, the differences were not significant, possibly due to the high variability of joint
forces. Despite the significant effects of pelvic tilt on hip joint force, other underlying
assumptions need to be addressed in musculoskeletal modeling software in order to
compare different conditions, such as the use of the same generic model despite
differences in sex and hip morphology. Future studies comparing pathological and
healthy joint loads can inform researchers on gait alteration strategies and the design of
assistive devices to manage the symptoms and onset of conditions such as FAIS. / 2022-05-15T00:00:00Z
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/42610 |
| Date | 15 May 2021 |
| Creators | Ismail, Karim K. |
| Contributors | Lewis, Cara L. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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