Orthopedic Tissue Tension Sensor

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In orthopedic surgery, surgeons have to handle not only bone but also the surrounding soft tissue, including muscle, fascia, tendon, ligament and capsule. Successful handling of these tissues is often the key to high reproducibility, good soft tissue healing, and restoration of overall function. However, there are no widely used, robust methods for intra-operatively quantifying soft tissue tension, an important variable in healing and overall limb alignment. Established methods require violation of the soft-tissue (e.g. buckle transducer), access to a free end of the tissue (e.g. graft tensioner) or knowledge of indentation distance. Current commercial products are limited to the knee, are not handheld, are invasive, and measure force or load, but not tension. There are no simple, non-invasive, inexpensive handheld devices available allowing to reliably and accurately quantify soft tissue tension for orthopedic surgeries. Such devices are needed to quantify tactile