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Scripps researchers receive NIH grant to study electronic knee
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Scientists at the Shiley Center for Orthopaedic Research and Education (SCORE) at Scripps Clinic have received a $660,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research related to a unique artificial joint called the electronic knee, or e-knee, according to a Scripps Health press release.
SCORE Medical Director Clifford Colwell Jr., MD, implanted the world’s first e-knee into a patient in 2004. This “smart” prosthesis contains a computer chip that measures forces inside the knee while the patient participates in various activities such as walking, climbing stairs, and exercising. Researchers use this data not only to understand how force affects the knee joint, but also to develop better knee implants and improve rehabilitation protocols following knee replacement surgery, according to the press release.
In collaboration with the University of Florida, Stanford University, and University of Western Australia, SCORE said its researchers will use the grant to help create computer-generated models of the musculoskeletal system that will predict what’s going on inside a patient’s knee based on his or her height, weight, gait, bone density, strength and other measurable characteristics.
“This is an exciting collaboration with some of the world’s foremost leaders in musculoskeletal modeling,” Darryl D’Lima, MD, PhD, SCORE’s laboratory director and co-principal investigator of the multi-center study, stated in the release. “By pairing their research with our data collected from the e-knee, which gives us an unprecedented understanding of what’s going on inside the knee, we will be able to create models of the joints and muscles in the lower body that are more accurate than anything created to date.”
If the accuracy of these models can be scientifically validated, they may help orthopedic surgeons predict how long prosthetic joints will last within individual patients following joint replacement surgery—thus allowing people to modify their lifestyle in such a way that their implant lasts longer, Scripps Health said.