Honors College Thesis
 

Development of a custom testbed to evaluate the efficacy of a force-amplifying implant in a live rabbit model

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  • In the United States, 58.7% of the spinal cord injuries that occur each year result in some degree of tetraplegia, this leads to reduced control of upper limb muscle. One surgery that can restore some upper limb function is a brachioradialis (BR) to flexor pollicis longus (FPL) tendon transfer surgery, which specifically restores key pinch grip. The issue with this surgery is that it only restores 2 kg-f of the original 9 kg-f. A novel pulley-like force-amplifying tendon implant is proposed to increase the restored 2 kg-f by up to 2X. The purpose of this thesis is to design a testbed that can evaluate the efficacy of this novel force-amplifying tendon implant. The testbed will need to accomplish two main capabilities, 1) measure the force output from the muscle-tendon and 2) measurably adjust the muscle-tendon length. The use of a load cell and micrometer head will accomplish these capabilities, respectively. From these components the testbed was split into four sections, 1) tendon to load cell connection, 2) load cell to micrometer connection, 3) rabbit arm to framework connection, and 4) framework to micrometer connection. The testbed was validated in a live New Zealand white rabbit, where the implant-modified tendon transfer surgery was conducted in the right forelimb of the rabbit and a tension-length curve was produced from muscle twitches at varying muscle-tendon lengths. Then the surgery was modified to the standard tendon surgery and the tension-length curve was also produced from muscle twitches at varying muscle-tendon lengths. The peak force and above-80% operating range were compared for each curve.
  • Key Words: Testbed, Tendon, Efficacy Evaluation, Tetraplegia, New Zealand white rabbit
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