A method for measuring the tension in tendons and ligaments in vivo

One long standing challenge in biomechanics has been to measure the force in muscles and tendons during physical activity. This information could be helpful in designing prosthetics, optimizing shoes to minimize injury to runners, diagnosing disease or tuning biomechanical models to obtain insights into how the neuro-muscular-skeletal system behaves. This presentation highlights a method that was recently developed by Thelen, Martin, Allen, Segalman & Slane that excites and measures vibration waves traveling in tendon to infer the tension and hence the stress in the tendon. The method has been validated ex vivo and in vivo studies to date have shown promising results.