The purpose of this study is to reveal the protective effect of rib cage on scoliotic spine by comparing the different effect of rib cage on the stability of normal spine and Lenke1 scoliotic spine. Firstly, according to X-ray computed tomography (CT) image data, four spinal finite element models (SFEMs), including normal spine without rib cage (N1), normal spine with normal rib cage (N2), scoliotic spine without rib cage (S1) and scoliotic spine with deformed rib cage (S2), from the first thoracic vertebrae to the sacral vertebrae (T1～S) were established. Secondly, the natural vibration characteristics of the four SFEMs were obtained by modal analysis. Finally, the maximum vibration amplitudes of the four SFEMs under external excitation were obtained by steady-state analysis. As shown in results, compared with N1, the maximum deformation of N2 segment T4～T6 in the -axis (coronal axis), -axis (sagittal axis) and -axis (vertical axis) directions decreases by 38.44%, 53.80% and 33.72%, respectively. Compared with S1, the maximum deformation of S2 segment T4～T6 in the -axis direction, -axis direction and -axis directions decreases by 44.26%, increases by 32.80% and decreases by 49.23%, respectively. As it can be seen, for normal spine, the rib cage can improve the stability of the whole spine in three directions; for the Lenke1 scoliotic spine, the rib cage can reduce the vibration of the scoliotic spine in the -axis and -axis directions and improves the stability of the whole spine in the two directions, while in the -axis direction, for the serious severe anteversion of scoliotic spine, the deformed rib cage exacerbates the vibration of the scoliotic spine in this direction and destroys the stability of the scoliotic spine in the -axis direction. This study reveals the biomechanical characteristics of rib caged influence on the stability of the scoliotic spine and it has guiding significance for the study of daily protection methods and protective tools for scoliotic patients.
Biomechanical Phenomena ; Finite Element Analysis ; Humans ; Rib Cage ; Scoliosis ; physiopathology ; Spine ; Thoracic Vertebrae ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Vibration

Aiming at the current situation of high cost, huge volume, complex operation and difficulty in real application of pulse analyzer, this study designs and implements a portable pulse detection system based on IoT. The design utilizes Raspberry Pi 3B+, STM32 series MCU and cloud server to collect, store, display and recognize pulse signals at CUN, GUAN and CHI. The system is small in size and low in cost, which can be connected with cloud server through network to make full use of resources. The experimental results show that the recognition accuracy of the main feature points of the pulse signal by the portable pulse analyzer is higher than 97%, which has a broad prospect of development and application.
Computers ; Heart Rate