Femoral shaft strains during daily activities: Implications for atypical femoral fractures

Abstract

Background: Atypical femoral fractures are low-energy fractures initiating in the lateral femoral shaft. We hypothesized that atypical femoral fracture onset is associated with daily femoral strain patterns. We examined femoral shaft strains during daily activities. Methods: We analyzed earlier calculations of femoral strain during walking, sitting and rising from a chair, stair ascent, stair descent, stepping up, and squatting based on anatomically consistent musculoskeletal and finiteelement models from a single donor and motion recordings from a body-matched volunteer. Femoral strains in the femoral shaft were extracted for the different activities and compared. The dependency between fem..