The weekly recap of what is going on in the world of biomechanics.
This week we present you two papers concerning injuries of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) that have been published recently. We start off with a systematic review about lower limb biomechanics before and after ACL reconstruction, and finish with an interesting paper, in which a group of researchers tried to reconstruct knee kinematics at the very moment of injury based on bone bruises on the femur and tibia. As always – enjoy the read!
- Lower limb biomechanics before and after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: A systematic review
- Prediction of Knee Kinematics at the Time of Noncontact Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries Based on the Bone Bruises:
- Great organization and implementation of the Dynamic Walking Conference 2020
- ISBS Online Lecture Series: New schedule and more speakers
Lower limb biomechanics before and after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: A systematic review
The group around Joseph M. Moore had a look at the literature assessing changes in lower limb biomechanics after an ACL injury and, based on that, wrote a systematic review. They included a total of 54 studies, which provided data on gait (n = 31), balance (n = 12), joint position sense (n = 5), stair ambulation (n = 4), pivoting (n = 6), and landing (n = 5). Both balance performance and joint position sense appeared to improve from pre- to post-surgery. Furthermore increased knee flexion excursion plus a reduced anterior translation and internal rotation could be seen. There were inconsistent findings regarding joint kinematics. The group seemed to be somewhat unsatisfied with the quality of some of the studies, or as they put it, “The low methodological quality of some articles may have contributed to these inconsistent findings”. But nevertheless, we always like to see systematic reviews and the overall findings are definitely insightful!
Moore, J. M., Cessford, K., Willmott, A. P., Raj, D., Exell, T. A., Burbage, J., & Mullineaux, D. R. (2020). Lower Limb Biomechanics Before and After Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction: a Systematic Review. Journal of Biomechanics, 109828.
Prediction of Knee Kinematics at the Time of Noncontact Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries Based on the Bone Bruises:
We stick to ACL injuries and take a closer look at this interesting study published two weeks ago in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering. The group examined ACL injuries using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and focused on bone bruises. These bruises develop on the femur and tibia at the very moment of injury and are therefore seen as the “impact footprint at the time of injury”, as the group calls it. After the acquisition of knee MRI scans of patients with acute noncontact ACL injuries, the group determined the knee position during injury. A comparison of the predicted position and the MRI scans showed that patients had significantly greater knee flexion, abduction, and external tibial rotation during injury. The group therefore concluded that knee valgus and external tibial rotation combined with knee flexion appears to be a high-risk movement pattern for ACL injury. What caught our attention in this study is the idea of using the bone bruises as “impact footprints”, something that might be quite useful to gain insight on further injury patterns.
SHI, H., Ding, L., REN, S., JIANG, Y., ZHANG, H., HU, X., … & AO, Y. (2020). Prediction of Knee Kinematics at the Time of Noncontact Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries Based on the Bone Bruises. Annals of biomedical engineering.
Great organization and implementation of the Dynamic Walking Conference 2020
Instead of Hawley, Pennsylvania, the Dynamic Walking Conference 2020 was held online on May 14. The participation fees were completely waived. For a whole day, hundreds of participants from all over the world dealt with the locomotion with the help of legs. Here, biomechanics met experts in robotics and bionics. In 4 sessions, a total of 21 speakers spoke via ZOOM about how humans move and how this knowledge can be used for the development of exoskeletons and robots.
The implementation of the poster presentations was particularly impressive. More than 120 scientific projects were presented during the breaks of the lectures as short overviews, posters or videos. The whole thing was implemented via spatial.chat. On this online platform, it is possible to “walk” virtually from one poster to another, listen to lectures on them and interact with the participants in the vicinity.
Also, a slack channel was set up for general communication throughout the day. All in all it can be said that the conference atmosphere has been imitated in the best possible way. Big kudos to the organisation team around Prof. M. Posa, Prof. A.M. Johnon, Prof. J. Finley, Prof. M.A. Daley, Y-M. Cheng and J. Payne.
ISBS Online Lecture Series: New schedule and more speakers
For more than a month we have been enjoying the ISBS lecture series with great presentations not only on biomechanics of different sports, but also on methods of biomechanics and the use of hardware and software. Now the next 8 speakers have been announced and the new schedule for the individual lectures has been created:
The exact times will follow in the next days. You can follow the whole series on YouTube under this link.
