Chapter 10: Mechanism of Injury

Chapter Objectives

After this chapter, you will be able to:

• Define acute injury, bending, brittle, chronic injury, compliance, compression, creep, deformation, ductile, elastic deformation, failure, tolerance, fatigue, fracture, shear, sprain, stiffness, strain, strain energy, stress, tension, torsion, toughness, wear, yield point.
• Describe the different types of load on the body.
• Sketch a load-deformation curve and label the toe region, elastic region, yield point, plastic region, strength, stiffness and strain energy.
• Explain how material failure occurs.
• Describe the mechanism of injury for the muscle, tendon and bones
• Describe how injury affects the mechanics of the muscle and tendon.
• List the common injuries that occur to bones, tendons and ligaments.
• Describe the effects of disuse, aging, exercise on the mechanical properties of bones, tendons and ligaments.