A Methodology for Assessing Intrasegmental Kinematics of the Whole Human Spine during Impacts

Abstract

Evaluating the biofidelity of spinal response in ATDs and computational models requires additional benchmarking data. The current study presents a kinematic analysis methodology for obtaining intrasegmental kinematics of the spine including elongation, compression, displacement, and anatomical rotations of the spine including flexion, lateral flexion, and rotation. The presented methodology divides the spine into five spine segments selected for detailed kinematic analysis which were specifically the following: head-to-T1, T1-to-T8, T8-to-L2, L2-to-L4, and L4-to-pelvis. The methodology provides a technique to more comprehensively describe the kinematics of the whole human spine than has been performed to date in the impact environment.