In vivo Biomechanical Analysis of the Effect of Neck Muscle Function on the Surgical and Physical Therapy Outcome of the Patient with Cervical Radiculomyelopathy (IV)

Cervical radiculomyelopathy is a common spinal degeneration disease. The clinical management of the cervical radiculomyelopathy includes the cervical spine surgery and the post-surgery physical therapy. Those managements aim to reduce the compression of the spinal cord or nerve root, to maintain proper spinal load and spinal stability, and to prevent from the recurrent symptom due to an ongoing spinal degeneration. Until now, there have not been detailed guidelines for the treatment plan of the cervical surgery and physical therapy. Muscles could augment the spinal stability at the cost of increased spinal load. However, it has not been investigated how the changes of the muscle function after the surgery and training program affect the physical state of the spine. The purpose of this study is to establish a biomechanical model in analyzing the effect of altered neck muscle function after the cervical surgeries and physical therapy programs on the spinal load and stability of the patients with cervical radiculomyelopathy. In the first year study, the ameliorated EMG-incorporated optimization model will be used to quantify the changes of the spinal load and stability during neck motions in patients with different degrees of spinal degeneration. In the second year, the neck muscle function and the state of the cervical spine will be compared before/after different cervical surgeries. In the third year, the effects of the physical therapy and duration after surgery on the patients will be discussed and simulated using the multi-objective optimization model. The ultimate goal of the three-year study is to facilitate the understanding of the neuromuscular control strategy and its effect on the spinal load and stability under various physiological conditions. The results of the study would provide guidelines on the surgery and physical therapy plan for patients with different degrees of spinal degeneration.

Project ID:PB10107-1727
External Project ID:NSC101-2221-E182-020-MY3