Title Investigation of biomechanical spine behaviour under various loadings and development of spine rehabilitation methods /
Translation of Title Žmogaus stuburo biomechaninio atsako į įvairias apkrovas tyrimas ir stuburo reabilitacijos metodų kūrimas.
Authors Mikuckytė, Sandra
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Pages 100
Keywords [eng] lumbar spine modeling ; intervertebral disc nutrition ; spinal actuator ; multifidi muscles
Abstract [eng] The human spine is a complex structure and any changes in this structure could lead to discomfort, loss of function, or pain. For example, the global prevalence of low back pain increased by 17.3% between 2005 and 2015. Low back pain can be caused by various known and unknown disorders. One of the more common causes of low back pain is intervertebral disc degeneration. Although the exact cause of disc degeneration is still unknown but as spine may be considered as a mechanical system, intervertebral disc degeneration may be related with the history of mechanical loading. Depending on the load it may improve or damage the condition of the discs. The aim of this research is to numerically and experimentally investigate the biomechanical behaviour of the human lumbar spine and to propose noninvasive measures for lumbar spine prevention and rehabilitation. Poroelastic finite element model of intervertebral disc is presented in the thesis. It allows to evaluate the influence of various mechanical loadings on the fluid flow velocity within the intervertebral disc. Experimental in vitro research helped to evaluate the impact of different frequency cyclic loading on the intervertebral discs. A spinal actuator has been developed and patented. The experimental study has shown that the lateral bending exercise performed on the spinal actuator significantly increases the activity of the multifidi muscles compared with the lateral bending exercise without any assisting equipment.
Dissertation Institution Kauno technologijos universitetas.
Type Doctoral thesis
Language English
Publication date 2020