The present invention relates to impacting devices, such as those used to provide impact force to a prosthetic component in order to secure the prosthetic component to another device or to tissue.
Many orthopaedic procedures involve the implantation of prosthetic devices to replace badly damaged or diseased bone tissue Common orthopaedic procedures that involve prosthetic devices include total or partial hip, knee and shoulder replacement. For example, a hip replacement often involves a prosthetic femoral implant. The femoral implant usually includes a rigid stem that is secured within the natural femur bone tissue. The femoral implant further includes a rounded head that is received by, and may pivot within, a natural or artificial hip socket. Shoulder replacement is somewhat similar, and typically includes a humeral implant that includes a rigid stem and a rounded head. The rigid stem is secured within the natural humerus bone tissue and the rounded head is pivotally received by a shoulder socket
Increasingly, prosthetic devices are provided as subcomponents that are assembled during surgery. In particular, the different anatomies of different patients require that prosthetic devices such as femoral and humeral implants be available in different sizes and configurations. By way of simplified example, a humeral implant may be available in as many as six or more humeral head diameters. Stems may similarly vary in size and/or in shape. Because the appropriate overall configuration of the implant can typically only be determined during the surgical procedure, it is advantageous that the surgeon have at her disposal many configurations and sizes of implants. Instead of providing a separate implant for each possible combination of features, implants are provided as modular kits of subcomponents that allow the surgeon mix and match different subcomponents to achieve the most advantageous combination for the patient. Thus, the surgeon can pick from several sizes or configurations of each component and combine the components to form an implant having an optimal combination of features.
One example of a modular implant is the humeral implant 10 shown in
Once the components are selected, such as the humeral head 12 and the humeral stem 14 of
The force applied to secure the plug 16 within the receptacle 18 is proportional to the retention force of the plug 16 within the receptacle 18. Thus, if a sufficient amount of force is applied, then the humeral head 12 will be securely fastened in the humeral stem 14. Other prosthetic devices employ Morse tapers for substantially the same reasons.
To apply sufficient force to lock the Morse taper arrangement, it is known to impact the humeral head 12 such that the impact force directs the humeral head 12 toward the humeral stem 14. The impact force drives the plug 16 into the receptacle 18 and forms the Morse taper lock A hammer or mallet is typically struck directly on the head, or through an impacting plate, tool or mechanism.
Previously, the surgeon (or other person) would impact a prosthetic implant several times without knowing if sufficient force had been applied to lock the Morse taper sufficiently. Often, in order to be sure that the Morse taper had locked, the surgeon or assistant would use excess force. The use of excess force is undesirable because of the potential for damage to the bone tissue or implant device.
Thus, there is a need for assisting surgical personnel in determining whether sufficient force has been applied to a Morse taper to lock the Morse taper. Such need is widespread as Morse tapers have commonly been used for connection of many types of implant devices.
The present invention provides the above needs, as well as others, by providing a force specific impacting tool. In particular, the impacting tool of the present invention includes two elements that require a first amount of force to overcome an interference between the two elements. If the interfering features and/or the other structures of the tool are chosen such that the first amount of force corresponds to amount of force to lock a Morse taper, then a surgeon may use the impact tool to impact a device having a Morse taper and be assured that sufficient force has been applied when the interference between the two elements is overcome.
A first embodiment of the invention is an impacting device that includes a hollow body and a movable member. The hollow body includes an inner chamber having an interior surface, the interior surface including at least one interference member extending radially inward therefrom. The hollow body also includes an impact surface at one end thereof. The movable member has a proximal impacting surface and is at least partly disposed within the hollow body. The movable member is movable with respect to the hollow body, and includes at least on interfering member configured to engage the at least one interference member of the hollow body. The movable member is operable to move the interfering member past the interference member responsive to at least a first impacting force applied the proximal impacting surface.
A second embodiment of the invention is a method that includes placing an impact surface of a hollow body on the prosthetic device, the hollow body including an inner chamber having an interior surface, the interior surface including at least one interference member extending radially inward therefrom The method also includes disposing at least one interfering member of a movable member within the inner chamber and against the at least one interference member of the hollow body such that engagement of the at least one interference member and the at least one interfering member inhibits movement of the movable member in a first direction. The method further includes impacting a proximal impacting surface of the movable member with a sufficient force to cause the at least one interfering member to move past the at least one interference member in the first direction.
The above embodiments may be used to ensure that sufficient force has been applied to lock a Morse taper arrangement. As such, the above embodiments provide the advantage of reducing the tendency to use unnecessary excessive force. Moreover, the above embodiments may be implemented relatively simply and inexpensively The force specific impact tool and method may further be used for other surgical purpose in which impact force is advantageously limited, such as for implanting a device within bone tissue, or for assembling components that employ non-Morse taper connecting features
The above described features and advantages, as well as others, will become more readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art by reference to the following detailed description and accompanying drawings.
Within the inner chamber 126, the hollow body 120 includes a plurality of interference features 140, 142 and 144 that extend radially inward from the interior surface 124. In the exemplary embodiment, the interference features 140, 142 and 144 are in the form of protrusions that extend partly around the circumference of the interior surface 124. The protrusions 140, 142 and 144 are spaced apart such that, as a group, they form broken annular rib having three voids 146, 148 and 150 that correspond to the protrusions 168, 170 and 172 on the movable member 160. In the exemplary embodiment described herein, the protrusions 140, 142, and 144 have an arcuate or convex cross section, as exemplified by the edge 140a of the protrusion 140 in
The protrusions 140, 142 and 144 are disposed approximately midway within the inner chamber 126.
The movable member 160 in the exemplary embodiment described herein includes a proximal impacting plate 162, a translation element 164 and a support disk 166 The impacting plate 162 may suitably be any shape, but should have a relatively large top surface 168 sufficient to conveniently receive the impact of a mallet or other pounding instrument. The translation element 164 may suitably be any elongate and rigid rod, tube, or block that freely moves through the opening 128.
The support disk 166 is in the form of a circular disk that includes a plurality of protrusions 168, 170 and 172 extending radially outward therefrom. The protrusions 168, 170 and 172 in the exemplary embodiment described herein are hemispherical in shape. The support disk 166 has a radius R3 that is less than a radius R2 of the broken annular rib defined by the protrusions 140, 142 and 144 of the hollow body 120. However, a radius R4 defined from the axis of the support disk 166 to the outermost part of the any of the protrusions 168, 170 and 172 exceeds the radius R2 The radius R4 is less than, however, a radius R1 of the interior surface 124 of the inner chamber 126. As a consequence, movement of the support disk 166 is not significantly impeded by the interior surface 124.
In operation, the support disk 166 of the movable member 160 is first disposed within the inner chamber 126 above the protrusions 140, 142 and 144 (see
In such position, the protrusions 140, 142 and 144 impede further inward axial movement of the support disk 166 by engaging or interfering with the protrusions 168, 170 and 172 (see
Once the disk 166 is located within the inner chamber 126 and the protrusions 140, 142 and 144 are engaging the protrusions 168, 170 and 172 to inhibit axial movement of the disk 166, the impact surface 130 is placed over a device to be impacted such as an implant device having a Morse taper feature. For example, the impact surface 130 may be placed on top of the humeral head 12 of
To this end, the interfering members of the movable member 160 and the hollow body 120 must be configured in such a manner that it requires (roughly) a predetermined amount of force to overcome the interference. As a result, the surgeon has confirmation that a sufficient amount of impact force has been applied to the implant device to lock the Morse taper when the interference has been overcome. This confirmation reduces the tendency of the surgeon to excessively impact the implant device.
The amount of force required to overcome the interference of the protrusions 168, 170 and 172 with the protrusions 140, 142 and 144 depends upon a number of parameters. One parameter is the choice of materials, and in particular, the hardness/elasticity of the materials, from which the hollow body 120 and the disk 166 are constructed. Other parameters include the difference between the radii R3 and R2. In particular, one may reduce the amount of force required by reducing the difference between the radii R3 and R2 Contrariwise, one may increase the amount of force required by increasing the difference between the radii R3 and R2 The cross sectional shapes of the protrusions 168, 170 and 172 and/or the protrusions 140, 142 and 144 may also be altered to change the required amount of force.
The proper selection of the above described parameters to achieve a given amount of force may be done theoretically, empirically though trial and error, or a combination of both. In a preferred embodiment in which the impacting tool 100 is “tuned” or configured for use with a particular Morse taper feature, the parameters of the impact tool 100 are chosen such that the amount of force required to overcome the interference between the protrusions 168, 170 and 172 and the protrusions 140, 142 and 144 exceeds the amount of force required by to sufficient lock the Morse taper feature
It will be appreciated that the above describe embodiment is merely exemplary and that those of ordinary skill in the art may readily devise their own implementations and embodiments that incorporate the principles of the present invention and fall within the spirit and scope thereof.
To this end, it will be appreciated that other numbers and types of interfering features may be used instead of the protrusions 140, 142, 144, 168, 170, and 172 For example, the protrusions 168, 170 and 172 may take many shapes, and need not be hemispherical. By way of nonlimiting example, the protrusions 168, 170 and 172 may take the general shape of arcuate members similar to the protrusions 140, 142 and 144 shown in
Moreover, it will be readily appreciated that alternative configurations of members other than the hollow body 120 and movable member 160 are capable of including interfering elements that inhibit movement until a first impact force is received Such alternative embodiments would provide at least some of the advantages of the invention described herein. For example, it can readily be seen that even the impact device 100 can be reversed, such that the hollow body 120 (or similar design) receives the impact from the surgeon and the movable member 160 (or similar design) imparts the force to the implant device.
In addition, the inner surface 124 of the hollow body 120 may suitably have a non-circular cross section, for example, a rectangular, square, triangular, polygonal or elliptical cross section. While such a device could have the disadvantage of being more difficult to reset after use, it could nevertheless still assist a surgeon in applying a minimal amount of force necessary to ensure a connection between prosthetic components In such alternatives, the disk 166 could still be used. In addition, it will be appreciated that the cross-section of the exterior surface of the hollow body 120 may be other shapes without significantly affecting the utility of the tool, although other designs could be more or less ergonomic.
In addition, it will be appreciated that the hollow body 120 (or other device that engages the implant) may be connected to, or outfitted with, a mechanism that grasps the implant, such as around the head 12 of the implant 10 of
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
1084766 | Thomas | Jan 1914 | A |
1837067 | Reiter | Dec 1931 | A |
2376187 | Reiter | May 1945 | A |
2480366 | Hewitt | Aug 1949 | A |
2725878 | Reiter | Dec 1955 | A |
3036482 | Kenworthy et al. | May 1962 | A |
3147484 | Permil | Sep 1964 | A |
3210836 | Johanson et al. | Oct 1965 | A |
4394097 | Horlacher | Jul 1983 | A |
4439184 | Wheeler | Mar 1984 | A |
4583652 | Goldberg | Apr 1986 | A |
4703549 | Grandt | Nov 1987 | A |
5102421 | Anspach, Jr. | Apr 1992 | A |
5127754 | Mase | Jul 1992 | A |
5186564 | Fuhrmann et al. | Feb 1993 | A |
5282805 | Richelsoph et al. | Feb 1994 | A |
5486181 | Cohen et al. | Jan 1996 | A |
5620445 | Brosnahan et al. | Apr 1997 | A |
5628105 | Fallandy et al. | May 1997 | A |
5800546 | Marik et al. | Sep 1998 | A |
5919196 | Bobic et al. | Jul 1999 | A |
5980528 | Salys | Nov 1999 | A |
6010508 | Bradley | Jan 2000 | A |
6022355 | Péche et al. | Feb 2000 | A |
6165177 | Wilson et al. | Dec 2000 | A |
6238435 | Meulink et al. | May 2001 | B1 |
6240811 | Oesterle et al. | Jun 2001 | B1 |
6270502 | Stulberg | Aug 2001 | B1 |
6349618 | Lowther | Feb 2002 | B1 |
20020014558 | Holemans | Feb 2002 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
---|---|---|
0549362 | Jun 1993 | EP |
0582849 | Feb 1994 | EP |
1004284 | May 2000 | EP |
1190687 | Mar 2002 | EP |
11078359 | Mar 1999 | JP |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20040064145 A1 | Apr 2004 | US |