Anteriro Cruciate Ligament (ACL) is an important ligament of the knee. Finding the mechanism of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in the knee has been the core area of our research at Waterloo.
We have developed a state-of-the-art lab facility at Waterloo through research grants from NSERC, CFI and ORF. Students have developed a unique combined in-vivo/in-vitro method to study the biomechanics of ACL injury during dynamic activities. We have designed and built a novel dynamic knee simulator system that can load a cadaver knee in the same way that the knee of a live person is loaded during dynamic activities. We perform in-vivo motion capture of high risk activities and use this data together with a musculoskeletal numerical model to extract the muscle forces. We then simulate the dynamic activities on cadaver knees to investigate the effects of activities and forces on the elongation of the ACL in the knee. Our research findings have shed new light on the role of knee and hip muscle forces on ACL injury and on the sagittal plane mechanism of ACL injuries. In the future, I plan to use this approach to develop an empirical model that uses in-vivo data to predict strain in the ACL during dynamic activities. Such a model could be used to identify subjects with high risk of ACL injury who could then be trained through neuromuscular training regimes. I also plan to study the neuromuscular protection strategies to prevent ACL injury using this approach.
