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Patient-Specific Ankle Contact Stresses as a Metric of Propensity for Post-traumatic Arthritis
Don Anderson, Jane Goldsworthy, Wendy Li, and Tom Brown
The University of Iowa
The role of altered contact mechanics in the pathology of post-traumatic osteoarthritis (OA) following intra-articular fracture remains poorly understood. It has been proposed that residual incongruities (i.e., anatomical irregularities in the articular surfaces) remaining after the injury and treatment lead to aberrations in the joint contact stress distributions which, over time, predispose to OA. Finite element models have been developed to ascertain patient-specific ankle joint contact stresses throughout the entire stance phase of gait, comparing fractured (healed) versus the opposite-side intact joint as a control. [Funding provided by the Arthritis Foundation and the National institutes of Health.]
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