Frictional torque

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Thanks for that history re the design........

Can I take the bit 'get the MOM bearing just right, the wear rates and

frictional torque were low which translated into implant longevity.' and ask

what role does building and keeping a healthy set of strong muscles around

the hip joint play in all this............... It would seem to me thinking

about this that the stronger I get muscles happening around the hip the less

friction load there is likely to be between the 2 pieces of prothesis. My

goal being to walk normally and not have a limp gait to even mess up things

further with odd loading.................for wouldn't that also make a

difference to how and where the torque got applied ................ ???

Edith LBHR Dr. L Walter Syd Aust 8/02

Mr McMinn's and Mr Treacy's experience with MOM hip resurfacing dates

back to 1991. Prior to that, Mr McMinn had observed good long term

survival of a long stemmed MOM THR from the 70's and 80's (Ring hip).

Ring moved away from MOM to polyethylene, and interviewed during his

retirement, he regretted this deeply. McMinn realised that if you

were lucky enough to get the MOM bearing just right, the wear rates

and frictional torque were low which translated into implant

longevity. He then decided to combine this observation with hip

resurfacing, a concept which had been tried by Wagner, Freeman,

Amstutz, and others including Charnley. Earlier designs of hip

resurfacing had used ceramic or metal on polyethylene or some other

soft material eg teflon. All these early designs were gradually

abandoned as failures rates were too high.