Modes of Failure in Natural and Artificial Human Hip Joints

Abstract

The human articulations (joints) represent the main and most important feature of the human body as they are the centers of the human's most essential basic activity, which is motion. Thus, the joint replacement is a very essential surgical treatment for severe joint diseases, and one of the most common and successful processes in the orthopedics is the total hip arthroplasty, which is performed most often to reduce pain and restriction of movement of the human hip joints that have presented problems for a large portion of the elderly people. Many designs, materials and manufacturing processes of prosthetic devices for the hip joint have reduced the risk and improved the long term success of the total artificial hip joint. The work reported in this paper emphasizes the main aspects of the real and artificial hip joint characteristics, their modes of failure and the factors responsible for such failures. It presents most of the common cases that occur frequently, and analyzes the factors that lead to failure in real and artificial hip joints. Failure of the polymeric cementing material, wear of the polymeric cup, and fatigue fracture of the metallic prosthesis are the most common types of failure. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.