Goals

• To determine if individuals with Femoroacetabular Impingement (FAI) have altered hip mechanics during activities of daily living.
• To determine if arthroscopic hip reshaping surgery would restore the observed abnormal motion post-operatively.

Major Findings

• Individuals with FAI display a reduced hip internal rotation angle and a reduced hip sagittal plane range of motion during walking and stair climbing.
• Abnormal reversals in hip flexion angle were seen in a large percentage of FAI individuals during walking.
• The reduced hip flexion angle and profile shape are similar to what is observed in hip OA individuals, further supporting the idea that FAI is a risk factor for the development of premature hip OA.
• Surgical intervention restores normal hip motion during walking, but not during the more strenuous activity of stair climbing.
• The presence of abnormal motion during stair climbing post-operatively suggests that there is continued damage in the underlying joint that could place the individual at risk for hip OA.
• These findings could have implications for the refinement of treatment options and establishes motion capture as a useful tool for quantitatively assessing the dynamic outcome of interventions for the treatment of FAI.

Representative Publications

• Preoperative and postoperative sagittal plane hip kinematics in patients with femoroacetabular impingement during level walking.
  Rylander JH, Shu B, Andriacchi TP, Safran MR. Am J Sports Med. 2011 Jul; 29 Suppl:36S-42S.
• Rylander J, Shu B, Asay J, Safran M, Andriacchi T. Altered stair climbing mechanics in individuals with femoroacetabular impingement, the 35th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Biomechanics (ASB), Long Beach, CA, August 10-13, 2011.
• Rylander J, Shu B, Safran M, Andriacchi T. Hip Flexion Angle Abnormalities in Subjects with Femoroacetabular Impingement during Level Walking, the 56th Annual Meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society, New Orleans, Louisiana, March 6-9, 2010.

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