This work illustrates the sensitivity of demographically characteristic body segment inertial properties and subject-specific customization on model performance. One characteristic demographic, gender, and one subject-specific characteristic, hip joint center location, were represented with musculoskeletal modeling to evaluate how design decisions may alter model outputs. Generic sexually dimorphic musculoskeletal models were developed from the commonly used Rajagopal model using male and female data adapted by Dumas et al. Hip joint centers of these models were adjusted based on functional joint center testing. The kinematics and dynamics of 40 gait cycles from four subjects are predicted using these models. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on the continuous time series data using statistical parametric mapping (SPM) to assess changes in kinematics/dynamics due to either choice in model (Rajagopal vs Dumas) or whether joint center adjustment was performed. The SPM based two-way ANOVA of the inverse dynamics found that differences in the Rajagopal and Dumas models resulted in significant differences in sagittal plane moments during swing (0.115 ± 0.032 Nm/kg difference in mean hip flexion moment during initial swing and a 0.077 ± 0.041 Nm/kg difference in mean hip extension moment during terminal swing), and differences between the models with and without hip joint center adjustment resulted in significant differences in hip flexion and abduction moments during stance (0.217 ± 0.055 Nm/kg increased mean hip abductive moment). By comparing the outputs of these differently constructed models with each other, the study finds that dynamic predictions of stance are sensitive to positioning of joint centers, and dynamic predictions of swing are more sensitive to segment mass/inertial properties.
Keywords: Body segment inertial properties; Computational musculoskeletal modeling; Functional joint center testing; Gait analysis; Sexually dimorphism.
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