Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 8, 2026
Evaluation of Patients' Posture and Gait Profile After Lumbar Fusion Surgery by Video Rasterstereography and Treadmill Gait Analysis
Published on: March 23, 2019
Spinal posture helps crash response evaluation of reclined occupant
Wenxuan Shen1,2, Jisi Tang3,4, Puyuan Tan1,2
1School of Vehicle and Mobility, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
Objective:
The growing adoption of self-driving vehicles and zero-gravity seats presents emerging challenges for occupant safety. With lumbar spine injury of reclined occupants receiving increasing research attention, the influence of spinal postures on crash response warrants further investigation.
Methods:
A precise adjustment method was employed to generate THUMS models in several specific reclined postures. Crash responses were evaluated against subjects in postmortem human subject (PMHS) tests in both average and subject levels.
Results:
The average model aligned by angular spinal posture more accurately predicted the occupant kinematics than the model aligned by average vertebral location, yielding an average 47% improvement in predicting peak X-displacement (except at L3). Regarding injury response, the spine-specific models accurately predicted the lumbar and iliac injury locations observed in the PMHS tests.
Conclusions:
THUMS models incorporating subject-specific spinal postures provide improved prediction of Z-direction kinematics compared to generic models and enable preliminary evaluation of spinal injury risk. Additionally, correlations established between thoracolumbar spine kinematic and kinetic responses offer new insights into lumbar injury mechanisms for reclined occupants.
Related Concept Videos
01:11Anatomical Positions
The body is upright, facing forward, and standing erect.
The feet are parallel and flat on the floor.
The arms are hanging by the...
01:16Vertebral Column: Regions and Curvature
Regions of the Vertebral Column
In an adult, the spine is subdivided into five regions: the cervical, the thoracic, the lumbar, the sacral, and the coccygeal region. The spine initially develops as a series of 33 vertebrae; after 20 years of age, the nine bones in the sacral region, five sacral, and four coccygeal bones fuse to form...