Perspectives on artificial joint design.
Due to poor interdisciplinary communication, many artifical joint designs fail to account for some features that normally allow bones to survive for life. In part, these features concern modeling drifts and remodeling basic multicellular units (BMUs), the microdamage thresholds of bone, its load-grain alignment and shear lock properties, load focusing and defocusing, mechanical usage/strain thresholds for controlling the biological mechanisms, and the regional acceleratory phenomenon.  This article reviews briefly some major aspects of these features and suggests how implant design might account for them.
Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Southern Colorado Clinic, Pueblo 81001.
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Frost
D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007595:Joint Prosthesis / Q000009:adverse effects; D007596:Joints / Q000502:physiology; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D011475:Prosthesis Failure; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D016474:Weight-Bearing