Name of the Technology
A Knee Joint Simulator
The Technology
- Knee joint simulators seek to replicate the physiological and physical conditions that affect the wear process in order to determine the mechanical limits of the materials and designs used in the implant (used in Total Knee Replacement (TKR) therapy).
- It essentially mimics the articulation between a femoral and tibial implant following a chosen gait cycle.
- Fresh tibial and femoral implants are mounted and brought into contact under loading conditions decided by standard force-time relation for different gait cycles those can be fed to the computer.
- It is fully controlled by a computer that generates signals following the gait cycle and the signals provide actuation and the loading of the joint.
USP
- It stimulates the joint articulation in the most natural way using flexible force member.
Advantages
- The mechanism used is very simple.
- There is a provision for testing standard or experimentally developed implants whereby the variation of joint loads in three directions along the gait cycles can be measured.
- Testing of implants can be done over a large number of cycles at the end of which the wear characteristics of the implants can be studied.
- This is suitable also to study the performance of tibial and femoral prostheses and develop new materials.
