Patient-specific fibre-based models of muscle wrapping

Abstract

In many biomechanical problems, the availability of a suitable model for the wrapping of muscles when undergoing movement is essential for the estimation of forces produced on and by the body during motion. This is an important factor in the Osteoporotic Virtual Physiological Human project which is investigating the likelihood of fracture for osteoporotic patients undertaking a variety of movements. The weakening of their skeletons makes them particularly vulnerable to bone fracture caused by excessive loading being placed on the bones, even in simple everyday tasks. This paper provides an overview of a novel volumetric model that describes muscle wrapping around bones and other muscles during movement, and which includes a consideration of how the orientations of the muscle fibres change during the motion. The method can calculate the form of wrapping of a muscle of medium size and visualize the outcome within tenths of seconds on commodity hardware, while conserving muscle volume. This makes the method suitable not only for educational biomedical software, but also for clinical applications used to identify weak muscles that should be strengthened during rehabilitation or to identify bone stresses in order to estimate the risk of fractures.