My Research
Total hip arthroplasty (THA) is a successful technique restoring lost mobility to patients suffering from osteoarthritis and acute trauma. A successful THA normalises the biomechanics of the hip joint so that a patient can achieve the required range of motion to fulfil their daily activities. This should occur without impingement between the prosthetic femoral neck and the pelvic acetabular rim, a precursor to dislocation. Impingement free motion is dependent upon prosthetic component orientation which is required to be adjusted by the surgeon intra-operatively. The need to maximise range of motion has resulted in a trend towards modular prosthetic designs. A recent development has been the introduction of femoral neck modularity. Initial clinical reports of this technology have been positive. However, these studies have been limited by two factors. Firstly, range of motion requirement is not well understood and secondly these reports have lacked a comparison against a proven hip replacement which does not have a modular femoral neck.
My research has sought to address the limiting factors regarding femoral neck modularity using a two-stage research design. The first stage developed a graphical representation of hip joint range of motion which was able to be applied within a clinical setting. This representation modelled both the researched benchmark requirement and patient specific range of motion post-THA. This methodology was used to assess a hip replacement with a modular femoral neck against a non-modular control. It was found that neck modularity has the potential to adjust prosthetic component orientation to achieve the ideal range of motion. However, this potential is being limited due to the current modular neck options available and because of difficulty in assessing prosthetic component orientation intra-operatively.
Main Supervisors:
Prof. Mark Williams
Product Evaluation Technologies Group Leader
WMG
