Modelling healing of geriatric distal femoral fracture fixation for pre-operative planning

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There is currently no consensus on best practices in the surgical management and rehabilitation of distal femoral fractures. Research into ideal fixation construct configurations yields conflicting results due to the large number of mechanical parameters. The proposed project involves the development and validation of a pre-operative planning system for surgical management of distal femoral fractures. A finite element model will be developed to simulate the mechanical conditions within the fracture-fixator construct and a fuzzy logics algorithm will be developed to model bone healing based on the simulated mechanical conditions. The system will take patient data inputs including fracture pattern and geometry and simulate the fracture healing time for a variety of fixation configurations to identify the combination operative and post-operative management option with the fastest healing time.Preliminary work has investigated contact simulation models of varying computational expense for the screw-bone interface in locking plate fixated fractures. Additional work is required, however, modelling of the screw shaft threads appears prohibitively computationally expensive. Planned methodology for experimental validation tests are described. Future work for the completion and testing for validation of the proposed system are described.