The majority of patients with low back pain have no known history of trauma. This suggests that an IVD can prolapse slowly by the formation of a tears in the annulus (Adams and Hutton, 1985). To investigate the injury mechanism in a spinal motion segment (SMS) this study incorporated radiating tears as well as circumferential tears, rim lesions, nucleus dehydration, and endplate fissures into a finite element model of a healthy SMS. The investigation included the most common physiological loading conditions which occur in daily activities. In general, the degenerative changes have reduced the failure initiation load of a SMS by 20-30% for all tested loading modes.
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