Journal of Ergonomics
Open Access

Abstract

In vivo Kinematics Assessment of Bulged Disk Cervical Vertebral

Amir Hossein Saveh, Amir Bahador Shabani, Ali Reza Zali, Samira Kermani, Amir Saeed Seddighi, Navid Nabizadeh and Mahmoud Chizari

Objective: On a cervical disk, the bulge may be produced in the poster lateral direction when there is a combination of lateral bending and compression loading. Although attempts have been made to measure the kinematics of intact vertebral spine but has not been compared with a vertebral spine when the dicks are bulged. The study aims to investigate the effect of a bulged disk on the kinematics of a cervical spine during a flexionextension motion then flexion-extension of five subject patients who had history of bulged disk in their cervical spine were studied. All patients had bulged disk at C5/C6 level. Design: This study uses a three dimensional model of cervical vertebras which was created from CT data of the subject patients. Flexion-extension range of motion of each subject patients was recorded using a fluoroscopic imaging method. Then motion of the cervical vertebra next to bulged disk were tracked using a 2D-to-3D registration method. The result of this measurement was compared with motion of intact cervical spines obtained by previous researchers. Results: The range of motion for normal C5/C6 is less than bulged C5/C6. Conclusion: The kinematics of flexion-extension motion for bulged intervertebral disk and the normal intervertebral disks are different.