Knee Replacements On The Rise Among The Elderly

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I came across this USA Today article the other day about how knee replacements are on the increase among older adults. In fact, from 1991 to 2010, a whopping 3.27 million people age 65 and older have had total knee replacements. Also, the amount of time in the hospital has decreased from 7.9 days to 3.5 days.

knee replacement

This means I’ll be dealing with a lot more of the elderly jogging past me on my runs, hitting overhead smashes at tennis or giving a mean crossover dribble/layup in basketball.

Guess who I have to thank for making it possible for the elderly to continue their dominance over me?  If you guessed ANSYS, I’ll give you a high five.

I have two examples I’d like to share with you:

  • DePuy Spine, the oldest manufacturer of orthopedic implants in the U.S. designing knee replacements, used ANSYS to replicate physical testing and gain detailed information on stress and deflection that can be difficult to detect in physical labs. (Read the Structural Analysis of Replacement Knee Design case study.)
  • Institute Technological of Celaya used ANSYS to analyze the wear of a knee joint prosthesis through a machine that simulates a gait cycle in movement and force. View the full presentation Development of a machine to test knee joint prosthesis.

So the next time you get beaten by 7 strokes in golf by your parents, don’t blame yourself…blame ANSYS.

One thought on “Knee Replacements On The Rise Among The Elderly”

  1. Nice blog post Derek. It is good to see what the acceleration in silico design adoption is bringing to the development of biomedical devices. I was just reading some related papers that you might find interesting. Engineering Mechanics published a paper where they stated that “The knee is the largest joint in the human body and among the most important ones to our daily lives. The knee is involved in virtually everything we do from walking to getting up from a chair to driving. The knee joint may look like a simple joint, but in fact, it is one of the most complex joints. Moreover, the knee is more likely to be injured than any other joint in the body.” (http://www.engineeringmechanics.cz/pdf/16_5_315.pdf)

    FEA is a vital piece of the process. Here’s a few more articles you might enjoy. http://www.improve2011.it/Full_Paper/86.pdf and http://www.cscjournals.org/csc/manuscript/Journals/IJE/volume3/Issue3/IJE-39.pdf

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