A mechanical arthrometer to measure knee joint contracture in rats

Author

Trudel, Guy ; ´Neill, Patricia A O ; Goudreau, Louis A.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Med., Ottawa Univ., Ont., Canada

Volume

8

Issue

1

fYear

2000

fDate

3/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

149

Lastpage

155

Abstract

Animal models for joint diseases are necessary for in vivo studies. Joint contractures are characterized by lack of the normal range of motion of a joint most often due to increased soft tissue stiffness. Biological and biochemical data have been obtained but biomechanical data on small animals are rare. An instrument was developed to measure rat knee angular displacement at various soft tissue loads in normal and pathological circumstances. This article describes the instrument and reports its reproducibility and accuracy. The reproducibility and accuracy of this instrument was found to be acceptable thereby validating its use for research purposes with adult rat knees

Keywords

biological techniques; biomechanics; orthopaedics; animal models; biochemical data; in vivo studies; instrument accuracy; instrument reproducibility; joint diseases; knee joint contracture measurement in rats; mechanical arthrometer; normal motion range lack; pathological circumstances; soft tissue loads; Animals; Bioinformatics; Biological system modeling; Biological tissues; Diseases; Instruments; Knee; Mechanical variables measurement; Rats; Reproducibility of results;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Rehabilitation Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1063-6528

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/86.830959

Filename

830959