The Displacements of Human Foot After Plantar Ligaments Injury: A Cadaveric Study and Finite Element Analysis

Most of the foot deformities relate to the arch collapse or instability, especially the longitudinal one. Though the function of the plantar fascia to the arch height has been investigated by some authors, the other plantar ligaments effect is still unclear. The purpose of this study was to explore the role of the plantar soft tissue in the foot arch biomechanics, including the plantar fascia, spring ligament complex, short plantar ligament and long plantar ligament through normal adult fresh frozen specimens in different injured condition. Also, a three-dimensional finite element model of a normal left foot was developed which was comprising most joints of the foot and consisted of bone segments, major ligaments and plantar soft tissue. These intrinsic ligaments of the foot arch were sectioned in different sequence in the cadaveric experiment, which simulated the different pathologic situation of the plantar ligaments injury to describe the bone segments displacement and stress distribution. The validity of the three-dimensional finite element model was verified by comparing results with experimentally measured data via the displacement and Von-mise stress of each bone segments. The flat foot model both in cadaveric foot and finite element foot was constructed and analyzed.