Background and objectives: Osteoporotic spine fractures represent a significant factor for decreasing quality of life in the elderly female population. Understanding the mechanisms involved in producing these fractures can improve their prevention and treatment. This study presents a biomechanical method to produce a vertebral fracture, conducted on a human spine segment, observing the displacements and strains in the intervertebral disc, endplate, and vertebral body.
Materials and methods: We performed two tests, one corresponding to an extension loading, and the second to an axial loading.
Results: The maximum displacement in the target vertebral body presented higher values in the case of the extension as compared to the axial strain where it mainly occurred after the fracture was produced. The strains occurred simultaneously on both discs. In the case of the axial strain, due to the occurrence of the fracture, the maximum value was recorded in the spine body, while in the case of the extensions, it occurred in the neural part of the upper disc. The advantage of this method was that the entire study was an experiment, using optical methods, increasing the precision of the material data input.
Conclusions: The research method allowed recording in real time of a larger amount of data from the different components of the spine segment. If there was an extension component of the compression force at the moment of the initial loading, part of this load was absorbed by the posterior column with higher mechanical resistance. After the maximum capacity of the absorption was reached, in both situations the behavior was similar.
Keywords: biomechanics; disc degeneration; optical approach; osteoporosis; strain; wedge fracture.