Functional modeling of human joints: A feasibility study for the KNEE

Biological tissues are plastic with respect to the mechanical environment to which they are exposed. This makes them able to modify their architecture and inner structure in order to respond to different loading conditions with the smallest biological effort (functional adaptation). As a result, tissues can optimally adapt their structures to the task they have to perform. Based on these concepts, a kinetic model of the ankle joint has been recently developed. The tibio-talar relative motion was obtained by imposing the congruence maximization as a biological optimum throughout the entire flexion range. The aim of this work is to investigate the applicability of the proposed approach to the knee and to evaluate the weight of the meniscal contribution to the global femoro-tibial congruence.