Ten `aged' (71 years) and ten `young' (47 years) cadaver knee joints were impacted to study the influence of age and pathodology on the fracture load, and incidents of occult injury. The results indicate that fracture load, per se, was independent of specimen age. Severely pathological specimens required significantly higher loads to fracture bone. Occult microcracking was also observed in subfracture experiments, however, fewer incidents were recorded for the `aged' specimens. This injury type has been associated with knee pain and the development of disease in the chronic setting. These data suggest that a bone fracture criterion based largely on pathological specimens would not provide a conservative measure of tolerance for the normal driving population.
Abstract