Influence of a mono-centric knee brace on the tension of the collateral ligaments in knee joints after sectioning of the anterior cruciate ligament––an in vitro study
Section snippets
Objective
Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) deficiency changes the mechanical characteristics of the knee joint. Sectioning the anterior cruciate ligament has been shown both in vitro (Markolf et al., 1976) and in vivo (von Eisenhart-Rothe et al., 2004) to increase anterior–posterior motion at the tibiofemoral joint. This increase in anterior–posterior motion may lead to a shift in load to other static stabilizers of the knee. For example, an increase in tension in both the medial collateral ligament
Specimens
Ten fresh adult right cadaver knees without signs of knee injury or surgery were used for this study. The knee specimens, including all muscular structures, were extracted 20 cm proximal and distal of the joint interface, then deep-frozen at −30 °C immediately afterwards. Before preparation and testing, the knees were thawed in a water bath at room temperature for about 10 h.
During preparation, the tendons of the quadriceps, semimembranosus, biceps femoris and gastrocnemius muscles were
Results
For better understanding of the results the tensions of the ligaments in the intact knee are included into the figures.
Discussion
In this in vitro study we answered the specific questions following our introduction:
- 1.
Knee bracing has a knee flexion angle dependent effect on the strain of the collateral ligaments in ACL-deficient knee joints.
By applying a knee brace, a highly significant reduction of tension was found at the anterior part of the medial collateral ligament in all joint positions. At the posterior part of the medial collateral ligament a significant tension reduction could be observed only at 40° and 80° of
Conclusion
This study shows that the application of a mono-centric knee brace leads to a significant reduction of collateral ligament tension after ACL sectioning. This effect is dependent on the position of the knee joint and shows a different extent on the medial and lateral collateral ligament. However, the application of a knee brace does not change the strain pattern of each ligament. Therefore a knee brace may add mechanical protection to the collateral ligaments in ACL-deficient knee joints and may
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