Host: Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Intelligent Informatics (SOFT)
Recently, Japan has become the best country which prolongs life expectancy. It results in increasing of the number of Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA). In the TKA, appropriate distribution of a force given by a soft-tissue around the knee into the medial and lateral component of the tibial plateau affects good outcome after the surgery. This paper examined to develop the evaluation system which provides a quantitative criterion for soft-tissue balance. The trial insert is used for measuring the appropriate prosthesis size. After measuring the size, a polyethylene-surface, that is one component of the total knee prosthesis, is fixed to a tibial component. The experiment was performed at the valgus with -10, -5, 0, 5, and 10 degrees. In all the experiments, the loads were 0.0 kg, 4.0 kg, 8.0 kg, 12.0 kg, 16.0 kg, and 20.0 kg. In conclusion, the experiments indicate that the proposed system could acquire a force distribution of the measurement trial insert quantitatively, and visualize the soft-tissue balance. Future works are to improve the resolution and accuracy, and to apply to more real situation.
