Sensitivity of a coupled modelling workflow to knee marker displacement

Sensitivity of a coupled modelling workflow to knee marker displacement: Determining the sensitivity of a coupled modelling workflow to variations in marker data retrieved from gait analysis

Wildöer, David (TU Delft Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering)

Tümer, N. (mentor)
Harlaar, J. (graduation committee)
Seth, A. (graduation committee)
Wesseling, M.G.H. (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

Biomedical Engineering

2022-12-19

To better understand and predict osteoarthritis, researchers are developing so-called coupled modelling workflows. Coupled workflows convert data from gait analysis studies to subject-specific tissue mechanical response estimations through the use of musculoskeletal and finite element models. The tissue mechanical response inside the joint is thought to play an integral role in the onset and progression of osteoarthritis. To study this, the design of coupled workflow was proposed. This design contained subject-specific gait data which was processed by a musculoskeletal model with a single degree of freedom knee joint. Musculoskeletal output was transferred through an adjusted generic finite element model of the knee to calculate maximum principal stress and shear strain values in the tibial cartilage of the knee. Proper marker placement is crucial for making an accurate assessment of the patient’s function in gait analysis studies. It has been claimed that marker misplacement is the main cause of measurement variability in gait analysis studies. It however remains unclear how potential marker misplacement propagates to the coupled modelling workflow results. To investigate this, in addition to the design of a coupled workflow, a sensitivity analysis was performed. With this sensitivity analysis we tried to answer the following question: How does marker placement of knee joint markers in gait analysis influence the tissue mechanical response calculated by a coupled workflow? For the sensitivity analysis, knee joint marker placements were virtually perturbed along anterior-posterior, proximal-distal and medial-lateral direction, to mimic marker misplacement. Corresponding knee biomechanics were estimated from the perturbed input data in the coupled workflow. Peak maximum principal stress values varied by up to 0.60MPa and peak shear strain varied by up to 0.08% as a result of perturbed knee marker placement. For cumulative stress levels, broader relative ranges were found. Moreover, the results showed that marker placement along the anterior-posterior direction had the greatest influence on corresponding tissue mechanical response estimations. In future studies a standard error of measurement margin is proposed in the assessment of coupled modelling worfklow results. In conclusion, the proposed workfow was relatively easy to build and provided similar tissue mechanical response result to those as reported by more complex models which were more computationally intensive. This implies that in the future, coupled modelling processes may very well be incorporated into the clinical decision-making process for musculoskeletal disorders like osteoarthritis.

Biocomputational modelling
Knee osteoarthritis
Gait Analysis

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:9547f270-88ca-4c60-9ee3-0c797e449e14

Student theses

master thesis

© 2022 David Wildöer