Skip to Main Content. A not-for-profit organization, IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Use of this web site signifies your agreement to the terms and conditions. Dynamic simulation of cervical traction therapy: Comparison between sitting and inclined positions Abstract: This research describes the construction of a mechanical cervical traction therapy simulation using a physics software engine.

Purpose: To evaluate the frequency and amount of displacements after repositioning a patient on the physical simulator following virtual simulation. Material and methods: After laser marking at the CT scanner and virtual simulation, patients were repositioned on the simulator. The isocenter obtained from the calculated table movements was checked by fluoroscopically measuring the distances to standardized anatomic landmarks and comparing them to the treatment plan.

A computer simulation model was developed to compare the result of cervical traction therapy in inclined and sitting traction positions. The behavior of the model was shown to match with the intervertebral changes in the upper and lower spine from the data of a radiographic experiment. Both the results of the experiment and the simulation also showed that in the inclined position, the amount of posterior separations in the upper cervical spine remains constant regardless of traction angle, while the posterior separations at lower cervical spine increases along with traction angles. Using the simulation model, parametric studies were conducted to investigate the intervertebral space changes in response to different traction angles in the inclined and sitting positions. When using the sitting position, the subject's hip joint stiffness was shown to cause larger variations in the intervertebral space than in the inclined position.