Multibody System of the Upper Limb Including a Reverse Shoulder Prosthesis

Abstract

The reverse shoulder replacement, recommended for the treatment of several shoulder pathologies such as cuff tear arthropathy and fractures in elderly people, changes the biomechanics of the shoulder when compared to the normal anatomy. Although several musculoskeletal models of the upper limb have been presented to study the shoulder joint, only a few of them focus on the biomechanics of the reverse shoulder. This work presents a biomechanical model of the upper limb, including a reverse shoulder prosthesis, to evaluate the impact of the variation of the joint geometry and position on the biomechanical function of the shoulder. The biomechanical model of the reverse shoulder is based on a musculoskeletal model of the upper limb, which is modified to account for the properties of the DELTA® reverse prosthesis. Considering two biomechanical models, which simulate the anatomical and reverse shoulder joints, the changes in muscle lengths, muscle moment arms, and muscle and joint reaction forces are evaluated. The muscle force sharing problem is solved for motions of unloaded abduction in the coronal plane and unloaded anterior flexion in the sagittal plane, acquired using video-imaging, through the minimization of an objective function related to muscle metabolic energy consumption. After the replacement of the shoulder joint, significant changes in the length of the pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi, deltoid, teres major, teres minor, coracobrachialis, and biceps brachii muscles are observed for a reference position considered for the upper limb. The shortening of the teres major and teres minor is the most critical since they become unable to produce active force in this position. Substantial changes of muscle moment arms are also observed, which are consistent with the literature. As expected, there is a significant increase of the deltoid moment arms and more fibers are able to elevate the arm. The solutions to the muscle force sharing problem support the biomechanical advantages attributed to the reverse shoulder design and show an increase in activity from the deltoid, teres minor, and coracobrachialis muscles. The glenohumeral joint reaction forces estimated for the reverse shoulder are up to 15% lower than those in the normal shoulder anatomy. The data presented here complements previous publications, which, all together, allow researchers to build a biomechanical model of the upper limb including a reverse shoulder prosthesis.